Tag: Illinois
Illinois Miner Survived 7 Days Entombed Underground in the Cherry Mine
For seven days, William “Bill” Clelland existed in what newspapers described as a living grave beneath the Cherry Mine in Illinois. Trapped underground with other…
Children Clung to Their Mothers as Fire Swept Through Steamboat
Most of the passengers aboard the City of Pittsburg were still asleep when fire broke out before dawn. Within minutes, the side-wheel steamer was filling…
Chicago Mayor Threatened to Call Out Troops as 1905 Strike Spread
Chicago stood on the edge of a wider labor conflict in the spring of 1905 as striking teamsters, determined employers, imported strikebreakers, and hundreds of…
Massive Flywheel Burst Killed Engineer at Chicago Steel Plant
In 1915, five hundred men were at work inside the Illinois Steel Plant in South Chicago when a massive flywheel came apart. The wheel, thirty…
Someone Kept Poisoning This Chicago Family With Arsenic
A Chicago family was struck again and again by arsenic poisoning in the spring of 1907, leaving police to wonder who was trying to wipe…
Chicago Heiress Took Vows of Silence Hoping to Cure Her Deaf Brother
Mary Holway had wealth, youth, and a comfortable place in Chicago society. Then, at twenty-five, she gave it all up. Before the altar of a…
Dancing Teacher Found Dead on Illinois Railroad Tracks
In September 1913, the discovery of a mangled body on railroad tracks outside Chicago appeared at first to be a tragic railway accident. But a…
Poisoned Prison Liquor Kills Four Convicts at Joliet Penitentiary
Behind the walls of Joliet Penitentiary, the search for escape did not always mean files, tunnels, or midnight breaks across the prison yard. Sometimes it…
Illinois Farmhouse Fire Failed to Hide Double Murder
On a large farm near Mason City, Illinois, a wealthy elderly couple lived with money close at hand and suspicion close behind it. John P….
Escaped Joliet Convict Captured Near Chicago
In October 1912, an escaped convict’s run for freedom came to an end not because of a betrayal or a clever trap, but because he…
