Today in Chicago History: Blackhawks beat Penguins at snowy Soldier Field

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Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on March 1, according to the Tribune’s archives.

Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.

Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)

  • High temperature: 71 degrees (1992)
  • Low temperature: Minus 5 degrees (1962)
  • Precipitation: 1.09 inches (2007)
  • Snowfall: 4.6 inches (1947)

1784: Virginia relinquished claim to Illinois, paving the way for territorial organization.

The Home Insurance Building at LaSalle and Adams streets in Chicago in 1926. It was considered the world’s first modern skyscraper. The building was demolished in 1931. (Chicago Architecture Photographing Company/Chicago History Museum)

1884: A permit was issued for the world’s first skyscraper — the Home Insurance Co. building. The nine-story structure was built at the northeast corner of LaSalle and Adams streets in Chicago. The building was designed by William Le Baron Jenney and completed the following year. For the first time, a skeleton of metal, rather than walls of masonry, formed the main supporting material for a large commercial structure.

The Home Insurance Building was demolished in 1931 to make way for the 42-story Field Building, which became the city’s largest office building at the time.

Chicago shifted to Eastern Standard Time on March 1, 1936 for an entire year. According to "Spring forward: The annual madness of Daylight Saving Time" by Michael Downing, this change led to confusion. The railroads, Chicago Stock Exchange and the Board of Trade went against the city ordinance. The city asked voters in Nov. 1936 what to do, and they wanted a return to central time. (Chicago Tribune)
Chicago shifted to Eastern Standard Time on March 1, 1936, for an entire year. According to “Spring forward: The annual madness of Daylight Saving Time” by Michael Downing, this change led to confusion. The railroads, Chicago Stock Exchange and the Board of Trade went against the city ordinance. The city asked voters in November 1936 what to do, and they wanted a return to Central Standard Time. (Chicago Tribune)

1936: Chicago shifted its clocks ahead, but not just for a few months. The City Council decided Chicago would be on Eastern Standard Time for the entire year. But it was confusing so clocks changed back to Central Standard Time on Nov. 15, 1936. That was the end of year-round Eastern Standard Time in Illinois.

FILE - Richard Wright, author of "Native Son," appears in New York on March 21, 1945. More than 60 years after his death, Wright's short novel, "The Man Who Lived Underground," was released April 20, 2021, by the Library of America. (AP Photo/Robert Kradin, File)
Richard Wright, author of “Native Son,” in New York on March 21, 1945. (Robert Kradin/AP)

1940: Richard Wright’s “Native Son” was published four years after he founded the South Side Writers Group. Wright found the model for his novel’s protagonist, Bigger Thomas, in the news coverage of the rape and murder of Chicago fireman’s wife Florence Johnson and the subsequent conviction and execution of Robert Nixon.

The Tribune reported Wright spent, “the first money he got from the book to buy his mother a house. She and his brothers live here on Chicago’s South Side, the scene of the book.”

The Stadium Series matchup at Soldier Field on March 1, 2014, was the first time fellow Canadians Jonathan Toews and Sidney Crosby faced off against each other in a regular-season NHL game. The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1. (Chicago Tribune)
The Stadium Series matchup at Soldier Field on March 1, 2014, was the first time fellow Canadians Jonathan Toews and Sidney Crosby faced off against each other in a regular-season NHL game. The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1. (Chicago Tribune)

2014: The Chicago Blackhawks defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 5–1 before a sold-out crowd of 62,921 at Soldier Field as part of the NHL Stadium Series.

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