Streeterville From Sandbar to Prime True Estate

George Wellington "Cap" Streeter hailed from Flint, Michigan. At numerous times he was a lumberjack, a circus performer, an ice cutter, a soldier, a logger, and a miner. His wife was fed up with his lack of direction and left him, taking his cash, so he left Michigan and came to Chicago .

Cap wasn't one to remain single for long. In 1886, he and his 2nd wife Maria "Ma" Mullholland decided to make their fortunes as gun runners in Honduras . They obtained and repaired a boat and christened it the "Reutan." In standard Cap Streeter vogue this was a misspelling. Supposedly they desired to name it following an island off the Honduras coast known as Roatan, but likely gun runners can't be expected to allow a little issue like spelling sluggish them down.

Gale force winds, however, put a brake on their ideas. Cap and Ma selected to check their boat on Lake Michigan when a storm took more than. These intrepid climate-be-damned entrepreneurs ended up on a sandbar about 450 feet eastof Michigan Avenue. Rather of digging out and continuing their expedition they selected to make the sandbar their new house and lived aboard the Reutan.

This was the excellent chance for Cap to make his mark. Fifteen decades soon after the Chicago Fire, the metropolis was in a creating frenzy. Cap invited the contractors to use his sandbar as a dump (for a charge) and it eventually prolonged the shoreline to include 186 acres of new land. You can't blame the contractors. It was easy and Cap, of course, underbid legitimate dumps.

Not that Cap considered his province was illegitimate. He'd completed his analysis, and in accordance to an 1821 authorities survey the boundaries of Chicago and Illinois ended at the original shoreline. His landfill was therefore impartial of the two and he designated it the "District of Lake Michigan," answerable only to the federal government. And, as a Civil War veteran, he claimed he was homesteading and this was by all rights his to retain.

As the self-proclaimed governor of his freshly developed district, Cap commenced offering parcels of land and a shantytown sprang up from the landfill. By this time Cap and Ma had erected a two tale home to substitute the Reutan as their headquarters. They lived on the 2nd floor, complete with a retractable ladder, and the 1st floor was their "war area."

Cap felt he essential a war space. Chicago 's rich entrepreneurs had been not pleased to have a shantytown in the shadow of their exquisitely constructed mansions and businesses. They also determined a thoroughfare on this new land would significantly improve its price by connecting the organization district to the Gold Coast. (This thoroughfare was Lake Shore Generate.) So, they went to town officials and convinced them to sic the police on these squatters.

A number of battles ensued for the District of Lake Michigan. Ma took treatment of a single group by pouring boiling h2o on officers trying to arrest Cap. His tenants also fought to keep the District impartial, rebuffing police on a number of occassions. Even even though he was captured often, each time he was acquitted. Despite the fact that at one stage he was convicted of murder, he was pardoned by the Governor of Illinois who agreed that Cap had been framed. For the duration of his imprisonment Ma died.

Undaunted, Cap continued his marketing campaign. His battles have been now mostly fought in the courts as his opponents recognized they couldn't forcibly oust the man and his tenants. In 1918 he was arrested for selling liquor with no a license and assault on a police officer. While he was in prison agents of Chicago Title and Rely on Organization burned his residence and his 3rd wife, Emma, ran at them with a meat cleaver (obviously Cap had a tendency to marry ladies with independence and tempers - who else could put up with him?).

Cap died, rather ignominiously, of pneumonia in 1921. Ironically the mayor of Chicago attended hisfuneral. Emma fought a marketing campaign to ensure the District Of Lake Michigan would remain in her family and filed over 1500 complaints for compensation to no avail. Chicago and Cook County officials identified a good legal loophole to deny these claims. Since Cap's first wife had run off with a vaudeville troupe (would you expect anything at all much less?) they weren't divorced, so Emma and Cap have been never legally married and her claims had been regarded as invalid.

Following time you check out the Hancock Creating or see it is criss-cross heights, preserve in mind that it was constructed upon the shanty of a renegade. George Wellington Streeter was a scoundrel and an opportunist, but his eccentricities gave Chicagoans some of their most valued true estate.

And that, in a nutshell, describes the allure and enchantment of Chicago. What commenced as a sandbar is now the most lucrative land in the town. Go figure.

Chicago Tenant Rights