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Chicago
Theater, ca. 1930 |
Chicago's principal retail and entertainment district during the early twentieth century was The Loop, so called because of the horse-drawn cable-car routes that once used the district's streets to loop back toward their points of origin. During the 1910s and 1920s, The Loop boomed. Department stores expanded, movie palaces opened, and night life thrived. From early in the morning until late into the evening, traffic jammed the district's streets and pedestrians crowded its sidewalks. The intersection of State and Madison Streets came to be known by many as "the world's busiest corner." The Depression of the early 1930s, however, hit the Loop hard as fewer out-of-town families and businessmen visited the city and cash-strapped Chicagoans reduced their spending and spent fewer nights out on the town. The Century of Progress World's Fair of 1933 and 1934 helped temporarily revive Loop leisure activities, but it was not until the Second World War, when military personnel and war workers crowded the district's streets night and day, that the good times returned in earnest.
General Information
Historical Map of Central Chicago and the Loop District in the 1900s-1910s [pdf 963k]
Department Stores
Marshall Field and Company... Mandel Brothers... Boston Store... The Fair... The Hub
Theaters
Chicago... State-Lake... Randolph... Oriental... Roosevelt... United Artists... Orpheum... Smaller Loop Theaters... Burlesque Theaters... Trocadero... Hopkins
Dance Halls and Cabarets
Moulin Rouge
Hotels
Hotel Sherman... LaSalle... Morrison
Transporation
Union Station... Central Station... Dearborn Station
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