Chicago’s Grand Midway: A Walk around the World at the Columbian Exposition

149 Pages·2017·57.99 MB·English

by  Norman Bolotin

Chicago’s Grand
MMiiddwwaayy

Chicago’s Grand
Midway
Midway
A Walk around the World
at the Columbian Exposition
Norman Bolotin
with Christine Laing
© 2017 by Norman P. Bolotin and Christine A. Laing
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
P 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bolotin, Norm, 1951– author. | Laing, Christine, co-author.
Title: Chicago’s Grand Midway : a walk around the world at the
Columbian Exposition / Norman Bolotin with Christine Laing.
Description: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017007237 (print) | LCCN 2017010064 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780252082429 (paperback) | ISBN 9780252099465 ()
Subjects: LCSH: World’s Columbian Exposition (1893 : Chicago,
Ill.)—History. | Midways—Illinois—Chicago—History—19th
century. | Concessions (Amusements, etc.)—Illinois—
Chicago—History—19th century. | Chicago (Ill.)—Social
life and customs—19th century. | Chicago (Ill.)—Buildings,
structures, etc. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / State &
Local / Midwest (IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD,
WI). | HISTORY / United States / 19th Century.
Classification: LCC T500.B2 B65 2017 (print) | LCC T500.B2
(ebook) | DDC 791.06/80977311—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007237
Cover illustration by Charles Graham
For John, Tom, and Brian. I loved you
like brothers and I cherish the magic,
discovery, and laughter we shared growing
up. You’ve been with me all the days since,
keeping me young while you were cheated
out of growing old. I’ll never forget those
endless days of our youth.
John Tate 1947–1967
Tom Tate 1948–1975
Brian McPhee 1952–1973

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Creating the World’s First Midway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Walking the Plaisance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Appendix: Financial Data on Midway Concessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Notes on References and Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Preface
O
ne always encounters dead ends and path- As soon as the gold was gone, so were all but
ways to nowhere in research . In more than a few hundred of the residents .
thirty-five years of passionate pursuit of Co- My reconstruction of life in the virtually
lumbian minutiae that might open new doors, unknown town in the Klondike River valley
I have often found road maps to such success . began with my own discovery of historical
But in many cases it may have taken years or gold—several boxes of glass plate negatives of
decades, not days or months . unpublished photos stored in the closet of the
My elation with such successes is generally grandson of one of the photographers . It con-
tempered by the knowledge that whether it tinued with the help of several gracious archi-
happens tomorrow or in another decade, addi- vists, curators, and historians . But it succeeded
tional information will eventually be uncovered because of the kindness of two women and one
that I will wish had been available for this book . man who were three of the handful of children
My first book, Klondike Lost: A Decade of Pho- who had lived in the town for a few years span-
tographs by Kinsey and Kinsey, was published in ning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries;
1980 . I began researching the gold rush in 1976 when I interviewed them, they were in their
and the Klondike gold rush town of Grand late eighties and early nineties .
Forks a year later . Also known informally and When those residents of the previously for-
in many government records as “Bonanza,” the gotten town passed away, despite archives of
tent city grew into a boom town of ten thou- records and countless collections of documents,
sand people in little more than a summer season a deep hole appeared in the history of the gold
of mining . rush . Nothing can replace the recollections of