Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 23, 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: 88 degrees (1960)
- Low temperature: 25 degrees (1986)
- Precipitation: 1.01 inches (1878)
- Snowfall: 3.1 inches (1967)
1848: The first boat passed through the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Laden with sugar and other goods from New Orleans, the vessel was headed to Albany, New York.
Upon the canal’s completion in 1848, cargo could travel smoothly from the Gulf of Mexico, up the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, join the Chicago River, head out into the Great Lakes and then over to the Eastern Seaboard. The waterway would make Chicago the epicenter of trade in the Midwest, and speculators bought up parcels then resold them for enormous profit.
The 96-mile route remained in operation until 1935. Its usefulness as a means of water transportation was virtually eliminated when a wider and deeper channel — the Sanitary and Ship Canal — was completed alongside the I&M Canal in 1900.
1914: Weeghman Park, later called Cubs Park and Wrigley Field, opened.
“Chicago took the Federal League to its bosom yesterday and claimed it as a mother would claim a long lost child,” Tribune reporter Sam Weller wrote. About 21,000 fans showed up to the 18,000-capacity ballpark — so many that gates had to be closed 30 minutes before first pitch.
Those locked out took to the windows and roofs of flat buildings across from the stadium and crowded surface and elevated line platforms to catch a glimpse of the “epochal day in the history of the national game,” according to the Tribune.
The Chicago Federals of the Federal League beat the Kansas City Packers, 9-1.
1940: Baby orangutans traveled 15,000 miles from Sumatra in western Indonesia to their new home at Lincoln Park Zoo. Crowds turned out for a glimpse of the new additions.
The Tribune donated its plane for the final leg of the journey from Camden, New Jersey, to Chicago.
2002: Wilco released “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,” which Tribune critic Greg Kot called “the best album of 2001.” Its release had been held up in what he called “record company” politics.
Twenty years later, the band played the album in its entirety during three shows at the Auditorium Theatre.
2010: Irish exchange student Natasha McShane and friend Stacy Jurich were attacked in the 1800 block of North Damen Avenue in Bucktown as they walked home from celebrating an internship McShane had just landed. Both were beaten unconscious with a baseball bat and robbed. McShane, who was working toward a career in urban planning at the University of Illinois Chicago, was beaten so badly that she could no longer speak or walk — though rehabilitation has helped in recent years. She is living with her family in Northern Ireland. Jurich also suffered serious injuries.
A Cook County jury convicted Heriberto Viramontes in October 2013, on all 10 counts of attempted first-degree murder, armed robbery and aggravated battery. Marcy Cruz, who acted as the getaway driver, agreed to testify against Viramontes in exchange for a plea deal. Viramontes was sentenced to 90 years in prison and Cruz was sentenced to 22 years.
2012: Nobel Peace Prize winners — including Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa and the Dalai Lama — gathered in Chicago for the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.
Actor and humanitarian Sean Penn was given an award for his relief efforts in Haiti, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2010.
Want more vintage Chicago?
Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.
Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather at krumore@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com
