Marked and unmarked graves of Union war dead in Chicago’s Rosehill Cemetery.

Soldier, originally uploaded by mmmmarshall.

This is based on an 1860 map of the B&O Railroad available online at the Library of Congress. CLF reports that it took nearly 48 hours to make the trip. The same trip on Amtrak today would require a transfer in Washington, D.C., but would arrive in Chicago (on the Capitol Limited) in less than 24 hours, assuming no delays. Wikipedia reports that in 1861-1862, the B&O in the Cumberland valley was subject to disruption due to the war, so this may have added to his journey’s length. Additionally, according to the same Wikipedia article, the railroad bridge over the Ohio at Bellaire (or Bel-air, as CLF reports it) wasn’t completed until 1871, so CLF would have had to disembark in Wheeling, WV, and crossed the Ohio river some other way. CLF also reports passing through Columbus, but it’s not clear exactly which route was taken from there to Chicago. It’s possible that he passed through Dayton, Ohio, near where some of his descendants would one day reside.

It’s likely that CLF arrived in Chicago at the Illinois Central Depot, located where Millenium Station now stands, at the intersection of Madison and Michigan. In 1858, it looked like this:

This is a photo provided by the Chicago Historical Society. The white buildings behind the train tracks are grain elevators. All of this is underground now, under the Art Institute and Millennium Park. Here’s another view of the waterfront station, courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society, from an 1857 “birds-eye view” of the city. Note the train steaming in from the left (South) across what was then a breakwater, but is now Grant Park.

I’ve given a little thought to it, and I’m thinking now that my 6″ Bean boots are slippery simply because they’re worn out. So, I’m going to bow to the pressure of my Connecticut birth and stick with the made in Maine stuff. Here’s the plan:

L.L. Bean 8″ Bean Boots with Thinsulate/GoreTex lining. The best of the traditional leather/rubber boot with the added benefits of modern science.

The Tribune article expressing Rice’s discontent with the plan to make the stars five-pointed led me to look in 1928′s council proceedings to find what action, if any, was taked on the proposed ordinance. I assumed, since the current flag sports lovely six-pointed stars, that the ordinance was shunted off to committee or never introduced.

Some time with the indexes to the proceedings revealed that it did indeed come up for a vote on February 15th, 1928 — and the ordinance passed. Which means that the City Clerk should have made the appropriate changes to the city code. However, all the printed and bound editions of the code that the Municipal Reference department can produce all have “six in number” language. I didn’t make careful notes on the exact dates of the volumes, so I can’t be sure the changes were never applied.

However, I’ve yet to see a picture of a flag from the 1928-1933 era, between the time the change was made and the third star was added. Also, the only reference I’ve found to “five-pointed” stars (and what I assumed was a typo) is from a typewritten page by Frederick Rex, one of the municpal librarians. It’s an excerpt from the “Quarterly Bulletin” of the Municipal Employees Society from Sept. 1930.

I’ve checked the indexes to the City Council proceedings from 1928-1939 for further changes to the flag (perhaps undoing the five-to-six point change), but the only actions I could find were the adding of stars. The 1939 ordinance adding the fourth red star for Ft. Dearborn contains the “points, six in number” language, both in the section to be modified and the text to be added.

So, at some point between 1928 and 1939 (or possibly 1933, since I’ve seen three-star flags with six points) they changed the language back, and this action didn’t get picked up by the indexer of the proceedings. It’s also possible that the six-to-five change was never made, which opens a whole other can of worms — what happens when ordinances pass but never make it onto the books?

Alderman Mose presented the following ordinance:

Be it ordained by the City Council of the City of Chicago:

Section 1: That Section 1017 of The Chicago Municipal Code of 1922 be and the same is hereby amended to read as follows:

“1017. The Chicago municipal flag. The Chicago municipal flag shall be white, with two blue bars, each taking up a sixth of its space, and set a little less than one-sixth of the way from the top and bottom of the flag, respectively. There shall be two bright red stars with sharp points, five in number, set side by side, close together, next the staff in the middle third of the surface of the flag.”

Section 2: This ordinance shall be in force and effect from and after its passage and approval.

Unanimous consent was given to permit action on said ordinance without reference thereof to a committee.

Alderman Mose moved to pass said ordinance.

The motion prevailed, by yeas and nays as follows:

Yeas– Coughlin, Anderson, Jackons, Cronson, Grossman, Meyering, Govier, Rowan, Wilson, Hartnett, McDonough, O’Toole, Moran, Coyle, Ryan, McKinlay, Prignano, D. A. Horan, Cepak, Toamn, Arvey, J. H. Bowler, Sloan, Maypole, A. J. Horan, Clark, Smith, Petlak, Kaindl, Nusser, Mills, Adamowski, Rings, Chapman, T. J. Bowler, Haffa, Loescher, Feigenbutz, Nelson, Hoellen, Massen, Frankhauser, Mose — 43.

Nays — None.

Word that Mayor Thompson has ordered preparation of an ordinance to change the stars in the municipal flag from six point to five point yesterday drew a protest from the flag’s designer, Wallace Rice. Mr. Rice designed the flag in 1917 at the request of the mayor, he said. It is now planned to change the stars so that they will conform to those in the national flag, it was stated.

“I purposely made the stars six pointed,” Mr. Rice said yesterday. “Five point stars are the symbols of states and could manifestly have no place in a municipal flag. Mayor Thompson is making not only himself but the flag ridiculous by ordering the change.”

There are two red stars in the municipal flag and two blue stripes on a white background. The stripes, the color, and the stars all have a detailed symbolism, each point of the stars representing a distinct characteristic of the city, Mr. Rice explained.

The proposed ordinance is to be presented to the city council on Feb. 15, it was reported.

To return to the six-pointed stars in the Chicago municipal flag. By the terms of the competition under the rules laid down by the Chicago Flag Commission in 1917, the use of religious symbols, which included the cross, the star and crescent, and the two triangles, one reversed and superimposed, was barred, for obvious reasons. [1] The five-pointed star, symbol of a soverign State, was also considered out of place, for reasons which I hope have been made equally obvious here. Chicago is a city.

After more than four hundred designs had been made by me, I finally struck upon such a six-pointed star as had never appeared in any flag before, peculiarly and singularly a Chicago star, made by a Chicagoan for his greatly loved city, by an American in the tenth generation in this country, whose ancestors had fought against Great Britain, for the most American of American cities. It differs from all other stars in use in European heraldry and in State and National flags and coats-of-arms, and is specifically for and of Chicago and nowhere else on earth because its points are straight and not like the usual heraldric etioile curved like flames, and because these points subtend an angle of only thirty degrees, instead of the sixty degrees subtended in the star made by superimposing a triangle.

1. According my copy of the rules, on file at the Chicago Public Library’s municipal reference collection, no rule specifically bars religious imagery.