Postcard Spotlight: Cows Under the Elevated Train Tracks

It may seem a bit bizarre to observe a group of cows underneath an elevated train station. The adults and children in the postcard also seem awestruck as they watch the animals. These animals were probably waiting to enter the gates of the Union Stock Yards for meat processing. There was a Stock Yards "L" train branch that served the area from 1908 to 1957. It was 2.9 miles long and had eight stops. It closed down due to lack of ridership. The stockyards at one time received 1,000 carloads of livestock per day from 22 states. This postcard was published around 1910 by V.O. Hammon of Chicago.

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Killer "Tsunami-Like Waves" on Lake Michigan

High waves at the Jackson Park shoreline. Published by V.O. Hammon Publishing Co., Chicago. What started out as a nice day to go fishing turned deadly for eight people on the lakefront on June 26, 1954. Suddenly and without warning, an eight-foot swell of water pulled seven fishermen into the lake at Montrose Harbor. The other fisherman was pulled into the water at North Avenue beach. The bodies of the eight fishermen were found within a few days. A large group of fishermen on a pier. Published by V.O. Hammon Publishing Co., Chicago. The incident was called an “act of God” by some media agencies at the time. Experts, however, believed it was a seiche wave (pronounced “sayshe” or “seech”), which can occur when a storm squall line creates high winds and driving water across the lake and then back to the Chicago shoreline. The wave can range from a swell of just a few inches to a large wall of water so big that it can smash onto Lake Shore Drive. Seiche waves can occur on smaller...

Burlesque Dancer Sally Rand Took the Chicago World's Fair by Storm

Sally Rand danced at the Streets of Paris exhibit. Postcard printed by Curt Teich & Co, Chicago. Sally Rand was never supposed to perform her iconic “fan dance” at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. The dancer’s requests to perform inside the Streets of Paris exhibit had been turned down several times. But Rand decided to take matters into her own hands by riding into a pre-opening party on the fairgrounds, uninvited, on a white horse wearing nothing but a velvet cape. The crowd loved it. Rand was arrested but released the next day, when she promptly accepted an offer to perform as the headliner in the Café de la Paix’s floor show for $90 per week. While her dancing broke boundaries and city decency ordinances at the time, her legacy was born and Rand made her cultural mark on the world. According to The 1933 Chicago World’s Fair by Cheryl Ganz, 29-year-old Sally Rand had previously worked as an acrobatic circus performer and film stuntwoman. She had also alread...

Putting the “Toddle” Back in “That Toddling Town”

Postcard designed and sold by appshop. The “toddle” was a jazz dance step that became popular across the nation just in time for the Roaring Twenties. And Chicago became known as “that toddling town” thanks to the lyrics of Fred Fisher’s 1922 song “Chicago (That Toddling Town).” While many still know Frank Sinatra’s famous cover version of that song, the dance step has largely been forgotten. In a 1921 South Bend News-Times article, dance teacher Arthur Murray describes the toddle as having the “delightful abandon so characteristic of everything American.” According to Murray, the toddle was similar to the shimmy but without the shoulder shakes. It also bore a resemblance to the fox trot but with an extra bounce added to the steps. Songwriter Fred Fisher was not the first to associate the toddle with Chicago. A variation of the toddle, which focused on movements of the hips rather than the feet, was called “the Chicago toddle” or simply “the Chicago.” In 1921, a print adverti...

Forgotten Chicago: Examining Vintage Postcards

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