Every city lays claim to have the biggest, fastest, first, and best. Chicago has its own claims to fame and here a few of the fun ones.

Chicago produced the first:

steel frame skyscraper
stainless steel building
electric iron and cooking range
Pullman railroad car
grain reaper
atomic reactor to produce electricity
cafeteria
window envelope
co-educational public high school
railroad sleeping cars
the bifocal contact lens
the winding watch
McDonalds' Fast Food Restaurant
Dunkin Donuts
the Butterfinger and Baby Ruth candy bars
Lemonheads, Red Hots, and Boston Baked Beans Candies
caramel-chocolate turtles
the bowling tournament
Shrimp de Jonghe
Cracker Jacks
Schwinn Bicycles
Bleacher Bums
Creme Rinse hair product by VO5
Color Television by Zenith


Batter Up! The first regulation baseballs and bats used by professional players were manufactured by Chicago entrepreneur (and former pitcher) Albert G. Spalding.

Chicago is home to the first totally fire-proof hotel, the Palmer House Hilton at State and Monroe Streets.

Chicago's own Jane Addams, founder of the Hull House, was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Peace (1931). The Hull House opened in 1889 to aid Chicago immigrants.

The first Ferris Wheel made its debut in Chicago in 1893 at the World's Columbian Exposition.

Hugh Hefner started "Playboy" magazine in 1953. The first issue sold for fifty cents and featured Marilyn Monroe.

The term "Jazz" was coined in Chicago in 1914. The city's native musicians included band leader Benny Goodman and drummer Gene Krupa.

Frank Sinatra introduced the song "My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)" in the 1964 Warner Brothers musical "Robin and the Seven Hoods." The song was voted best motion picture song of 1964 by the All American Press Association.

Founded in 1848, The Chicago Board of Trade is the world's oldest and largest futures and options exchange.

The first international exposition devoted exclusively to refrigeration was held in Chicago in 1913.

Before prohibition, Shlitz Brewery owned more property in Chicago than anyone else except the Catholic Church.

In 1848 Alonzo Richmond launched his salt distribution business in Chicago. In 1886 Joy Morton acquired a major interest in the company and it was renamed the Morton Salt Co. The "umbrella girl" and her slogan, "When it rains, it pours," have endured since the ad began in 1911.

The world's largest gum manufacturer, William Wrigley, Jr. Company, produces more than 20 million packages a day. It was also the first U.S. manufacturer to give its employees Saturdays and Sundays off of work. In 1891 William Wrigley Jr. arrived in Chicago with $32. He began selling baking powder and came up with the idea of offering two packages of chewing gum as premiums with each can. People were more interested in the gum, so he began to market it under his own name. He introduced Juicy Fruit in 1893 and Spearmint a year later.


Chicago's Famous Buildings

The first of Marshall Field's Clocks was installed at the corner of Washington and State Streets on November 26, 1897. The cast bronze clock rests some 17.5 feet above the sidewalk and weighs a hefty 7.75 tons.

Tribune Tower, home of the Chicago Tribune newspaper, has exterior walls that are embedded with pieces of famous buildings more than a stone's throw away from Chicago, including authentic stones from Westminster Abbey, the Alamo, Hamlet's castle, the Great Pyramid, the Taj Mahal, Fort Sumter and the Arc de Triomphe.

The Wrigley Building's landmark clock tower is patterned after the Giralda Tower in Spain. Under instructions from William Wrigley, architects designed the Wrigley Building to look like a "luscious birthday cake." In 1946, the Wrigley Building was also the first air conditioned office building.

The Sears Tower is the world's tallest building with 110 floors. The Merchandise Mart is the world's largest commercial building with 4.2 million square feet.

Chicago's McCormick Place offers the largest amount of exhibition space in North America with 2.2 million square feet.


What's In A Name?

The title "Windy City" was given to Chicago by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in 1893. He was tired of hearing long-winded politicians boasting about the wonders of the World's Columbian Exposition held in Chicago the same year.

The Fannie May candy stores were opened in Chicago by real estate broker Archibald Teller in 1919. There was never a real Fannie May; it was a name that Teller thought sounded like a candy maker.


Sports In Chicago

Founder and coach of the Chicago Bears professional football team, George Halas organized the American Professional Football Association in 1920, the forerunner to the National Football League.

The Chicago Bears were the first football team in the country to:

• practice daily
• film games to study for strategies
• have their own team band and team song
• publish and distribute a club newspaper
• broadcast games over the radio
• have a homecoming dinner for all ex-Bears
• issue player diplomas

The Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field is the last Federal League ballpark still standing.

Wrigley Field has hosted more professional football games than any other stadium in the nation.

Wrigley is affected by wind conditions more than any other major league park. Breezes off Lake Michigan favor pitchers, but winds blowing toward Lake Michigan take homers with them.

Ivy was planted on the outfield walls of Wrigley in 1937 by Bill Veeck, originally 350 Japanese bittersweet plants and 200 Boston ivy plants.

Wrigley Field is affected by wind conditions more than any other major league park. Breezes off Lake Michigan favor pitchers, but winds blowing toward Lake Michigan take homers with them.

The world-famous Harlem Globetrotters got their start in Chicago as the "Savoy Big 5." They played their first game at Chicago's Savoy Ballroom in 1926 and became the Harlem Globetrotters in 1927.