1. 21B Chicago Tribune | Section 1 | Sunday, June 7, 2015
CHICAGO FLASHBACKBreaking history since 1847
Thanks to government regulation
beginning in the 1960s to curtail air
pollution, the Wrigley Building now
stays blazingly white, and residents
can generally breathe deeply as they
enjoy the lakefront. Still, the debate
over the costs and benefits of clean air
is again before the U.S. Supreme Court.
However the justices rule this
month on whether the Environmental
Protection Agency overstepped its
authority in setting more stringent
mercury emission rules, it is eye-open-
ing to realize what life was like for
Chicagoans for much of the 19th and
20th centuries.
The smoke nuisance, as it was
named, was invasive. It ruined be-
longings, blackened and eroded archi-
tecture, spoiled food and caused incal-
culable health problems for residents.
It turned day into night, and some-
times it ate the sun entirely.
As early as 1874, as the city rebuilt
after the Great Fire of 1871, the Trib-
une warned that the huge increase in
factories and hotels, and the new sky-
scrapers with their steam-powered
elevators, was a serious problem. “So
dense is this volume of smoke that,
unless there is a brisk, stirring breeze,
the whole of it settles down in the
central part of the city and leaves its
dirty imprint,” the editorial said.
Tourists today praise Chicago’s
glorious architecture and world-class
museums, and often marvel at how
clean the city is. Visitors then weren’t
so impressed.
No lesser light than “The Jungle
Book” author Rudyard Kipling found
much to dislike after a visit, the Trib-
une reported Feb. 8, 1891. The future
Nobel laureate had nothing good to say
about the city, including, “Its air is
dirt.”
This wasn’t a literary allusion. He
wasn’t waxing poetic. His was a state-
ment of fact.
Civic leaders, including the editors
of the Tribune, crusaded tirelessly
against the “smoke horror.”
“The city will shortly be blackened
in appearance, new as it is, and grow
more unhealthy,” the Tribune wrote in
1874. “What is to be done should be
done quickly, if the beauty and cleanli-
ness of the city are worth preserving. …
When the means for securing this
result are so cheap and simple, it is the
height of folly to go dirty any longer.”
But folly was apparently abundant.
“The wisp of smoke that enters your
eyes and mouths … the falling soot that
decorates our noses and leaves its trace
on our linen becomes more and more
disgusting … and yet nothing is done,”
the Tribune wrote in 1876. “Marble
fronts are blackened, costly goods are
spoiled, valuable books and papers are
defaced, washing bills are multiplied,
and everybody made uncomfortable,
in order that a few persons may not be
put to the inconvenience of attaching a
smoke-consumer to their engines.”
On Dec. 19, 1880, the Tribune wrote,
“There is not a storekeeper in Chicago
whose goods are not seriously injured
by it, and to many lines of fine goods it
is destructive. It soils and irreparably
defaces some things. The deposit of
soot finds its way not only into stores,
but into public and private offices,
where it defaces papers and books. It
reaches into every private dwelling,
falls upon every bed, curtain, carpet,
dining-table, blackens and disfigures
all articles of furniture, finds its way
into drawers and clothes-presses, is a
curse to every laundry, and injures
clothing to a costly extent. It is forever
falling upon goods and upon persons,
it renders the hands and faces of all
grimy, sooty and unclean. It is not a
special but a universal nuisance, reach-
ing all alike, and by all detested.”
Officials recognized early that it
wasn’t just cosmetics and comfort at
issue but residents’ well-being.
“Health … is directly injured by the
nuisance,” the Tribune reported in
1880. Twenty years later, at the dawn
of the 20th century, the Tribune took
nearly half a page to outline the health
threat. “How Chicago Men’s Lungs
Are Blackened By Soot” was the head-
line over graphics illustrating the
problem. An autopsy of a Chicago
resident revealed a lung so black that
to touch it “would blacken the palm
almost as black as to put it wet into a
pan of soot,” said one doctor.
The issue was clearly visceral for
many reporters, who reached far and
wide for the proper description. On
July 31, 1890, one wrote: “The smoke
nuisance in the region west of Wells
and south of Pearson streets is of large
proportions and of athletic build. It has
daily encounters with two fellow-
giants — dust and stench — and not
being able to settle the question of
superiority, they join forces and make
war on mankind.” Postmen in the area
looked like coal heavers, and one
claimed he bathed four times a day. “It
does no good,” he said, “a trip down as
far as Kingsbury Street to deliver a
snip of a postal card, and I am black-
faced and sore-eyed.”
The problem was so bad, experts
suggested that planting some types of
vegetables was a waste of time because
of the smoke. In a huge swath from
North Avenue to about 50th Street and
Western Avenue to the lake, the ex-
perts warned that “the following
should not be attempted: cucumbers,
tomatoes, peppers, parsnips, beans,
peas, potatoes, turnips, sweet corn,
eggplant, berries and melons.”
Then on Jan. 29, 1892, it got so bad,
the smoke ate the sun. Though the
suburbs and outer parts of the city
enjoyed bright blue skies, “Chicago
was dark. … There lay on the lake a pall
of smoke, making it difficult at noon to
see the pier-light on the government
breakwater. … The westerly wind
drove the smoke over the lake, and for
a mile from shore all was dark.”
Visibility downtown was two
blocks. Occasionally, the smoke sunk
lower, and “pedestrians had to pass
through an atmosphere that was sim-
ply choking.”
The city ended the year equally
gloomy. On Dec. 1, the Tribune re-
ported, “Chicago Enveloped in Smoke
Clouds All Day.” “Over all the city lay
the heavy pall of black, sooty smoke
and dimly through it gleamed the gas
lamps like stars on a foggy night.”
The banks of smoke were “heavy
enough to use for paper weights,” the
Tribune reported. Offices and busi-
nesses had to operate with every gas
jet and electric light ablaze. But even
that didn’t shed enough light, and
retailers complained that sales were
down because customers couldn’t see
the merchandise. One resident said, “If
this thing keeps on, pedestrians will be
obliged to carry a lantern.”
It is hard to know how often the sun
lost its battle to shine — though it
happened regularly into the 1950s —
because the Tribune wrote stories only
when it was unusually bad. On Jan. 18,
1925, the newspaper reported the pall
that turned day into night was “the
densest, thickest and darkest smoke
screen which has been thrown over
the city this season.” The “plague of
darkness” on Dec. 7, 1929, was caused
by low-hanging clouds, fog and “the
customary smoke screen.”
And the power needed to light the
day meant Commonwealth Edison
had to burn even more coal.
sbenzkofer@tribpub.com
Twitter @sbenzkofer
Darkness hangs over State and Lake streets at 10:15 a.m. Feb. 1, 1957. Severe air pollution was to blame. The Tribune often ran stories about the invasive smoke nuisance.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
THE DINGY CITYFor much of its history, Chicago covered by smoke, soot
By Stephan Benzkofer | Chicago Tribune
The smoke and soot were so thick, they blotted out the sun.
Residents who hung their clean clothing to dry hauled in dingy white
shirts and gritty underwear. Opened windows meant soiled curtains and
filthy sills.
Brand-new buildings quickly weathered as the caustic pollution ate away
the stone.
This isn’t a dystopian vision of the future. It isn’t a description of rapidly
industrializing China or India. It’s Chicago’s past.
A 1917 cartoon by Tribune Pulitzer Prize winner Carey Orr points out that Chicago’s
air pollution was harmful to more than just potatoes.
Flashback idea?
Share your suggestions with Stephan
Benzkofer at sbenzkofer
@tribpub.com or 312-222-5814.