A most wonderful website caught my attention as I researched Connecting Through Midway. I don’t like to recommend websites because they seem to disappear right after I mention them. Seriously, my endorsements create a cloud of bad luck that jinxes any site unfortunate enough to get one. The Chicago Public Library produced this site however and the author published more than a hundred articles over the previous two years. It should be safe. I’d uncovered the “Municipal Reference Guy.”
The specific entry that piqued my interest bore an enticing title, Do You Know Chicago’s Streets?. Well, no I didn’t. That’s why I found it particularly interesting. So I “borrowed” three of the items I found most fascinating and decided to research them further. All due credit should go to the original author, the Municipal Reference Guy. It doesn’t count as plagiarism if someone elaborates upon the original version and provides full disclosure, right?
O’Hare International Airport
The page referenced both of Chicago’s major airports, Midway and O’Hare. That’s the connection that led me to discover it. Both of their names traced to a World War II theme although I focused on another feature for today’s purpose.
The International Air Transportation Association used the code ORD for O’Hare. If the “O” stood for O’Hare, then what did the other two letters mean? Trick question! ORD didn’t reference O’Hare at all. The airport began operations before World War II; several years before Butch O’Hare lost his life earning a Medal of Honor as a Naval aviator. O’Hare didn’t become O’Hare until 1949. It went by a less remarkable name, Orchard Field before that. This reflected its position on the outskirts of a village called Orchard Place.
“O’Hare began as an airstrip in the area known as Orchard Place. It became a Douglas aircraft manufacturing plant during World War II. It is unclear if the D stands for Douglas or Depot, or simply is the final D in Orchard.”
Orchard Place started as a small farming community settled by German immigrants in the 1830’s. It all but disappeared in the 20th Century as the airport expanded and an Interstate highway plowed through part of it. Suburban Chicago grew and absorbed the rest of it, forming the southern edge of Des Plaines. Its name lives on in the IATA Code ORD and at a local school, Orchard Place Elementary (map).
Meet Me at Broadway and Sheridan
If someone in Chicago asked you to meet them at the corner of Broadway Street and Sheridan Road, they might be trying to ditch you. The two streets, as noted by the Chicago Public Library, actually intersect three different times. It’s been awhile since I made my own Google Map although it seemed a perfect opportunity to illustrate the intersections.
Generally the roads ran parallel to each other, north-south. Nonetheless, both took strange angles at places that forced them to intersect repeatedly. This happened at the 3900 North, 4350 North and 6400 North blocks.
I wondered about their names as I naturally do. Sheridan Road derived from General Philip Sheridan who gained his fame during the Civil War. But the street didn’t relate to his service during the war. Sheridan happened to be stationed in the city when the Great Chicago Fire destroyed more than three square miles in 1871. He quickly took control of the situation, dynamiting buildings to create fire breaks, and restored order after the mayor declared several days of martial law. The disaster, awful as it was, would have been considerably worse without Sheridan in command. Chicago did not forget his actions.
Broadway Street apparently got its name from the famous Broadway in New York City in 1913.
All Four Cardinal Directions
Wacker Drive should be renamed Wacky Drive in my opinion. I’m not sure if similar examples existed anywhere else — maybe the wise 12MC audience can find other occurrences — because Wacker featured street addresses with all four cardinal directions.
Chicago used a numbering system that designated addresses as north-south or east-west. Generally it didn’t pose a problem because streets tended to run in fairly uniform directions. Wacker did not. It followed the Chicago River where it bent around downtown. That created a nice curve in Wacker Drive that resulted in both a north-south segment and an east-west segment. Thus, legitimate street addresses included North, South, East and West Wacker Drive.
Anyone visiting Chicago probably noticed that Wacker also features upper and lower levels. The upper level handles through-traffic. The lower level allows trucks to make deliveries to nearby buildings. I didn’t know that Wacker also included a short third level known as Lower Lower Wacker Drive. Secret drag races became a problem there in recent years.
Who was Wacker? Charles Wacker chaired the Chicago Planning Commission that developed city infrastructure improvements in the early 20th Century.
Bonus! The Midway Plaisance
![Fall Day on the Midway. Photo by feministjulie; (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)](https://live.staticflickr.com/2021/1703119128_426dfd74eb_b.jpg" width="1024)
I discovered some bonus trivia on another article on the site, specifically Streets of Chicago: Midway Plaisance. This Midway, unlike the airport, did not reference the Battle of Midway or Midway Atoll. Actually I couldn’t find the definitive reason why they called it Midway although it dated to the mid-19th Century.
Plaisance came from a French version of pleasant, in other words a nice place to spend some time. The World’s Columbian Exposition took place there in 1893. Chicago wanted to create an iconic statement like Paris did with the Eiffel Tower at the 1889 World’s Fair. So a revolving circular tower rose at the center of the mile-long Midway Plaisance, the world’s first Ferris Wheel (map).
Hundreds of exhibits lined the Midway Plaisance during the Columbian Exposition. It became such a sensation that just about every circus, fair or exposition afterwards took the idea along with its name, creating their own Midway.
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