Back to regular view     Print this page
Your local news source ::
      Select a community or newspaper »



Metro links
Metro & Tri-State
Blogs
News
Columnists
 


AddThis Social Bookmark Button






Feb. 15: On this date

February 15, 2009

As reported by the Chicago Daily News, sister paper of the Chicago Sun-Times:

100 years ago

To curb tobacco spitters, health commissioner Dr. W.A. Evans wants to abolish smoking cars on trains and similar compartments in street cars. Or, in Evans' words: to "exterminate the enemy of health who spits on the street, in public conveyances and in other public places." Police had been told to arrest spitters at all times, but no arrests are ever made unless some agitation is started, Evans said.

75 years ago

Harold Johnson, former manager of the Lexington Hotel, Al Capone's headquarters, was locked up in the Marquette police station on a charge of perjury growing out of his testimony at the racket conspiracy trial. Capone and his mob, paying $2,500 every two or three weeks for their eight-room suite at the Lexington, lavished $50 tips on the manager. The state contends that Johnson "didn't play cricket with this court record in trying to cover up the part Capone and his successor as a public enemy, fugitive Murray Humphreys, played in the cleaning and dyeing industry."