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Getting Around Chicago

In 1918, the federal government issued national rail restrictions, limiting the use of the nation’s train system in order to conserve precious railcar space for war supplies. But, within Chicago, people still could move about the city in pretty much the same way.

Those who travel around Chicago today on the L or by car might have a little difficulty recognizing the city’s transportation schemes 90-plus years ago, though. That’s because mass-marketed automobiles were still in their infancy, and though the L routes that are familiar to today’s passengers were similar to those of 1918, the dominant mode of transportation at the time no longer exists—the streetcar.

Streetcars blanketed the city. There were, according to one Tribune article, about 4,700 streetcars in all. They ran through every block of Chicago’s downtown, and could be ridden from Howard Street in the North to 138th Street in the south, an end-to-end distance of about 25 miles. The Chicago Federal Building This map shows Chicago streetcar lines in 1914. The fare was five cents—though there was a movement on to raise the fare to six cents—and the cars were frequently very crowded. A study in 1918 showed that 692,815,889 paid passengers rode the streetcars in the previous year.

The L was also available, and would have been recognizable to today’s riders. (There was no subway, though. That would come later, as part of the New Deal public-works projects.) The fare, too, was five cents, and the train also covered a wide area than the streetcars. Passengers could ride from Linden Avenue in the northern suburb of Wilmette all the way to Jackson Park on the South Side. The cars all met in a shared circle around a section of the downtown area—thus, “the Loop.” According the public transportation report, there were 193,120,173 riders on the L in 1917.

Both the streetcars and the L were convenient and clean, with courteous conductors and no extra charge for transfers. This was largely the responsibility of Samuel Insull, a utilities magnate who founded some of today’s Chicago power giants like Commonwealth Edison and People’s Gas. Before 1911, the L and streetcar lines were all run by a disorganized series of private companies, but Insull provided a loan that helped the transit lines merge into one entity, and Insull later became the de facto head of the transit system. That made transportation, which had long been an enormous problem for Chicago, much more convenient.

There were automobiles, as well as taxis and jitney cabs, though gas rationing limited their use in 1918. Still, Chicago had a renowned system of boulevards and parkways perfect for leisurely automobile drives, and most cars in 1918 were used for pleasure. But autos were a presence in the middle of crowded Chicago streets, and were often dangerous. A Chicago Tribune article in December 1918 quoted a local judge saying, “In the city of Chicago in seven months ended Nov. 30 more than 300 people were killed by automobiles and more than 3,500 injuries that did not result fatally were reported.”

In fact, Judge Walter LaBuy, who presided over Speeders Court (and would later go on to U.S. District court), was so fed up with the recklessness shown by some who appeared before him that he began sending them to a psychiatrist. According to May 16’s Chicago Daily News, when faced with a salesman who was tabbed going 40 mph, LaBuy said, “Nutty! There’s no doubt about it. I’m going to send you down and have your head gone over. Any man who drives an automobile forty miles an hour on a city street can’t be anything else but a nut. Bailiff, take this man to Dr. Hickson to be examined.”

Managing traffic flow was a problem for the city, and Chicago had been at the forefront of developing traffic lights to deal with the problem. The city still was known for its frequent traffic jams and, especially downtown, traffic cops handled the flow of autos and streetcars. Traffic cops had to be closely obeyed, as one young member of the Chicago Cubs learned just before the team took off for spring training. Barber was a Tennessee native and a bit of a rube and hurt his toe on his arrival in Chicago when, confused by the bustle of traffic, he, “forgot himself in crossing a downtown street when he should have been waiting for the cop's whistle. A taxi whizzed past him and ran over one foot.”

Sean Deveney

Sean Deveney currently reports for The Sporting News. He covers Major League Baseball and professional basketball for the Sporting News. The Original Curse is Sean's first published book. Sean grew up outside Boston, MA and currently lives in Chicago, IL.

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