The gems one uncovers when digging through old newpapers and documents for research purposes are sometimes the very items that keep researchers like me going. And sometimes those little gems, although they are not the objects we were actually looking for, become the most interesting and intriguing, or at least the most amusing.
Case in point: An article from the Chicago Tribune of April 2, 1911, entitled “‘It’s Surely a Fine Thing to be Billed as the Equator of Chicago,’ Says Madison Street, ‘but Finer to be the Heart of the West Side’.” The article talks first about the renumbering of addresses in Chicago which made Madison the “zero” point for north and south street numbers. It contrasts the development occurring in 1911 with Madison street’s earlier history as a pioneer pathway that connected with many other trails first blazed by Native Americans. In the 1850s, Madison and its intersecting routes were the first Chicago area thoroughfares to be improved with a wooden surface.
“Like all the other great highways of the early days, it became a plank road. Milwaukee avenue ws the northwestern plank road, Madison was the western plank road; Ogden avenue, which branched off it, was the southwestern plank road. The Madison street plank road was carried out westward fromt he city to the branch of the Desplaines river at Robinson’s. This work was done in 1850 and 1851. The road was soon built west to the DuPage county line, making seventeen miles in all. The Elgin and Genoa company then carried the plank work westward through DuPage county for twenty-eight miles, making a total plank highway to the west of fifty miles.
“The Southern Plank Road was carried out ten miles to Kile’s tavern. This is said to have been the best plank road leading out of the city. It was kept in better repair and was more popular than any of the others. It led to Riverside and LaGrange. Another famous old road that branched out of Madison street was what is now Colorado avenue. In 1834 and for may years afterward it was known as Barry Point road, because it led to the Widow Barry’s farm.
“Many interesting associations cling about the intersection of Madison street and Ogden avenue, where the plank roads joined. Here was situated the famous Bull’s Head Inn and the first Chicago cattle market. This cattle yard began business in a small way in 1848, just southeast of the intersection of the plank roads. There was nothing west of Ashland avenue, known as Reuben street at that time. Farmers from all over that wild section beyond Ann street [now Racine] used to drive their herds into this market; wild uncouth men from the wilderness, some of them coming in from as far as Oak Park.”
For those unfamiliar, Oak Park is about 5.5 miles west of the Madison and Ogden intersection, so by today’s standards it seems that those wild and uncouth Oak Parkers did not have far to go through the wilderness to offend the sensibilities of the refined Chicago city-dwellers. It would not suprise me if virginal city ladies had many a sleepless night from the nightmares of having Oak Parkers so close at hand–much like barbarians at the gates of Rome! Here’s hoping they were wearing their chastity belts at all times when perambulating around the west side plank roads!
