23 Miles of Chicago

My brother and I recently drove Western Avenue from Evanston to the southern border of the city, all 23.5 miles of the longest continuous road in Chicago. It took us all day. The trip started as a quest for a good hot dog at a place we had never been to before, but the dogs ended up being a detour as we decide to take the long way.

Get Your Red Hots!
Get Your Red Hots!

Driving Western, you see Chicago neighborhood by neighborhood – Lincoln Square (where we ate at Jibek Jolu, a fantastic Krygyz restaurant), North Center, Bricktown, Wicker Park, McKinley Park, Gage Park and Beverly. Each of the neighborhoods we passed through told a little of the history of Chicago – Art Deco buildings, Row Houses or single families depending upon the neighborhood’s age, areas with fairly homogenous populations, and those that are more diverse.

Western Ave Detour
Western Ave Detour
We detoured from Western to get to our original destination, Jimmy’s Red Hots at West Grand Ave. and North Pulaski. After a somewhat harrowing ordering process – you can’t delay when choosing the Polish or the hot dog, and you better get in two lines – we enjoyed our dogs out in the parking lot. We set the dogs on the hood of the car and dug in. Great dogs with no ketchup ever (their motto), and the fries were pretty amazing. They were well worth the drive, but we were only half way down Western. As we drove on, I was wishing I hadn’t gotten both the dog and the Polish because we passed about ten hot dogs stands that now I’ll need to go back and sample.

When we got toward the end of Western, we peeled off and found ourselves at the Mount Hope cemetery.

Paul Harris Founded the Rotary Club!
Paul Harris Founded the Rotary Club!
On the outside gates, we saw the seals of both the Rotary Club and the Lions Club. How can the founders of two competing international service clubs be buried in the same place? We drove in to see the graves of the founders of the two clubs. There are signs pointing to both men’s graves, but Paul Harris, the Rotary Club founder is definitely winning the homage competition. It seems like the Lions pay less of a loving tribute to Melvin Jones than the Rotarians do to Paul Harris. Melvin Jones’s grave is just a grave. Paul Harris has a monument. There is a brick walkway leading to Harris’s grave, and the bricks are engraved with the names of big wigs in the Rotary Club. Silvester Schiele, Harris’s best friend, is buried next to him, while his wife is nowhere to be found. (She buried in Scotland.) I was a little disappointed. My grandfather was a devoted Lions Club member, and I had expected more from the Lions.
The simple grave of Melvin Jones
The simple grave of Melvin Jones

After our pilgrimage to the resting place of The Founders, we made our way back North, stopping at some Frank Lloyd Wright houses, Paul Harris’s house, and the site of the Pullman Factory. The Pullman National Historic Site is one of the newest sites protected by the National Park Service. Much of the utopian factory town that George Pullman built for his workers still remains. White workers rented the townhouses at high rates from the Company. Pullman did hire African Americans, but mostly as porters, who were paid less and not allowed to live in the town. After a national financial crisis, Pullman cut the wages of the workers, but not the rent. The workers, led by Eugene Debs, went on strike and other unions joined. The strike led to the disruption of travel nation-wide, but it also interfered with the US mail service. This got the feds involved. Troops moved in to end the strike, violence and riots erupted, and they shot into the crowds. Thirty people were killed. To appease the outrage, Congress established Labor Day as a Federal holiday. The Park Service has just opened a visitor center, but it was late in the day so we’ll need to go back here.

23 Miles of Chicago. It was a long drive, but totally worth every mile.

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