Notorious Chicago

Notorious Chicago  | Eastland  |   Iroquois |  Streeterville |   Haymarket | Everleigh | Lady Elgin | O’Leary’s

This view was taken in 1914 and shows the typical type of homes that were found in the infamous Levee District. One of the buildings shown is of 2117 S. Federal Street. The Levee District was considered the largest “red light” area in the country.

Federal

One of the most bizarre murders in Chicago history was the “Sausage Vat Murder. ‘ Louisa Luetgert , the wife of sausage maker, Adolph Louis Luetgert, disappeared on May 1, 1897. Adolph told his children that their mother had gone to visit her sister on the previous night but never came back. After a few days, Louisa’s brother, Diedrich Bicknese went to the police to report her disappearance. Luetgert then claimed to the police that she ran away with another man.

During their investigation, the police came to know that the couple had a history of domestic violence and that the couple fought on a regular basis. According to a source, Luetgert had financial difficulties so he started courting a rich widow who he planned to marry once he got rid of his wife. The police continued their investigation and discovered that on the night of May 1, 1897, the night Louisa disappeared, she was seen entering the factory with her husband at 10:30pm. A watchman from the sausage plant confirmed the story, saying that Mr. Luetgert gave him an errand to run and told him that he could take the rest of the night off.

The police also made a shocking discovery; they came across bills that stated that Luetgert bought arsenic and potash the day before the murder. Due to all the accumulated evidence the detective was convinced that Luetgert had killed his wife, boiled her in acid and then disposed of her in a factory furnace.

The officers then started searching in the furnace where they found burned foul sausages and human residue. There, they also found two of Louisa’s rings, including one that had the initials “LL” engraved on it. Bone fragments identified by a forensic anthropologist included metatarsal bones, toe phalanx, rib and head of a human female. Due to the overwhelming evidence, Luetgert, still claiming his innocence, was arrested and put on trial. Luetgert was convicted and sentenced life in prison. Luetgert died in prison on July 7, 1899.

This case was one of the first trials widely covered by the media. Newspapers from Chicago would report on it daily and some of them would try to eavesdrop on the jury deliberation. At the time, the case was called the celebrity case and is credited with putting murder trials in the media. This case also was one of the first to use forensic experts to solve a crime.

Today, the factory still stands on the south side of the 1700 block of West Diversey Parkway; however, it has been converted into condominiums similar to the other town homes and condominiums which now are beside it.

A seemingly innocent furniture handling company, the S.M.C. Cartage Company actually was a prohibition-era booze warehouse on 2122 N Clark street. It was here that the famous St Valentine’s Day Massacre which became the representative event of the gangland wars during the Great Depression years took place.

From 1896 to 1903 the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden was operating in what was known as Whiskey Row on State and Harrison streets. A small bartender would often sell to unsuspecting customers his “special drink” which consisted of raw alcohol and other unidentified powders that would put him in an unconscious state. The bartender would then rob the victim and dump him in an alley near the tavern. The name of the bartender? Mickey Finn, of course. Even though Mr. Finn gave payoffs to the local police, the tavern was closed down by them on 16 December 1903. Mr. Finn did return to bartend and was known to sell his “formula” to others.

The first serial killer in the United States resided in Englewood, IL during the Columbian Exposition. Herman W. Mudgett, who went by the name of Henry Holmes, had a bizarre theory that the human body can be stretched to twice its size and that he can produce a race of giants. He was constantly testing it by luring visitors of the Fair to his boarding house. Many visitors have had the honor to spend the night with Mr. Holmes, of which were never to be found again. In what he called his Castle, located at 63rd and Wallace streets, Mr. Mudgett built a dungeon consisting of 100 windowless rooms and a torture chamber with crematory in the basement. Although he has admitted to killing 27, it has been estimated the actual number to be between 30 and several hundred.

About 1995, Allen Koenigsberg, an expert on the phonograph, found a suitcase containing 36 unlabeled cylinder records. Edison’s cylinder phonographs, unlike the disk grammophones, enabled users to make their own recordings. Among the recordings, there was one with an unidentified voice of someone admitting multiple murders.

“I cannot help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to a song. I was born with the evil one standing beside the bed when I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me ever since.” The only clue in the recording to identify the confessor was his regret about one of the 27 victims – his lover, Minnie Williams. Miss Williams was one of the victims of Mr. Mudgett.

Irish immigrant, Michael McDonald (1839-1907) ran a 4-story casino palace in the heart of the city known simply as “The Store”. When an employee asked McDonald how they would ever keep The Store filled to turn a profit, McDonald allegedly responded “Don’t worry about that. There’s a sucker born every minute”. He is also credited for corrupting city officials and giving W. C. Field’s his favorite line, “Never give a sucker an even break.”

Roger Plant’s resort at the northeast corner of Wells and Monroe was one of the wickedest vice resorts in the country in the 1860s. The police called it the “Barracks” but Roger called it “Under the Willow” because of a lone willow tree on the corner. There were about 60 rooms in the shacks that made up Roger’s resort, and in them was practiced virtually every sort of vice and criminality known to man. There was a saloon, three brothels, and dens where young girls were broken in by a dozen men and then sold to bordello’s. It was believed that a tunnel ran from the brothel under Wells Street to the vice dens by the Chicago River. This tunnel, which would have been the result of several subterranean rooms that were built when the city raised its level by 14 feet and the term “underground” became coined as organized crime activity. One of the tenants here was Sammy Caldwell, a burglar who was said to have been the first to gag and bind his victims with plaster and tape.

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (a son of a Sears Vice President) were geniuses. They felt that their combined high intelligence could commit the Perfect Murder. For seven months they worked out a plan. Bobby Franks, a 14 year old boy was their chosen victim. Bobby’s father was a millionaire who also happened to be a distant cousin of Mr. Loeb and lived in the Hyde Park area.

On 21 May 1924, the pair picked up Bobby near his home, beat him to death, disfigured his face with acid and stuffed his body in a sewer pipe. The murderers then sent a ransom note demanding $10,000 in unmarked bills.

There were three incidences that linked the pair to the murders:

1) A pair of horn-rimmed glasses that were found near the body. These glasses fell out of the pocket of Mr. Leopold. The glasses were of a common prescription and initially there was nothing about them that can link Mr. Leopold to the incident. However, further inspection of the glasses revealed a custom hinge that only three people had received prescriptions for which proved he was at the site.

2) The ransom note was created on the same typewriter that notes were made from a member of Leopold’s law study group.

3) The most incriminating evidence came from the Leopold family chauffer. His statement contradicted Loeb’s story that he was out driving girls around Lincoln Park in his car. The chauffer insisted that his car never left the garage.

The boys hired Clarence Darrow, whose case focused on the horrors of the death penalty. Since both boys confessed to the crime, the only decision to be made was the punishment. In this highly publicized hearing that took place at the County Courthouse on Hubbard and Dearborn. The boys were sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr. Loeb was murdered in prison in 1936, while Mr. Leopold was released on parole in 1958. Mr. Leopold wrote a book, moved to Puerto Rico and taught mathematics. He died 30 August 1971.

There is a strong cult of people who believe the boys were framed (no pun intended) due to someone being very envious of their high intellect.

When the Levee was closed in 1912, the area around 22nd and Wentworth became a ghost town. The Chinese began to move here when the property at the site of the original Chinatown at Clark and Van Buren in the Loop became too expensive.

It was at 2120 South Dearborn, the location of Madam Emma Duvall’s French Em brothel that the first all-mirrored bedrooms were introduced in the early 1890s.

In every urban area that had rowhouses, it was required by law to provide access to the front and rear sides of the building for tenants. These were called “passageways” or “breezeways”, but in Chicago they were “gangways”. During the Capone era, these dark and narrow areas became escape routes for those evading the law or other gang members. Even the police were afraid to enter gangways alone.

Photo DN-0063323, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago Historical Society.