Yerken' Our Chain
By Margaret Hicks in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 29, 2006 2:58PM
Tonight on WGN Radio, Milt Rosenberg will be hosting John Franch, author of the new book “Robber Baron: The Life of Charles Tyson Yerkes”, and John Wasik, author of the “The Merchant of Power: Sam Insull, Thomas Edison, and the Creation of the Modern Metropolis.”
Yerkes’ melodramatic life is also the inspiration for three books by Chicagoist favorite, Theodore Dreiser. His novels, "The Financier", "The Titan" and "The Stoic" are all based off of Yerkes and his indiscretions, both personal and financial.
It’s men like Charles Yerkes that make Chicago what one of our commentors called “City on the Take”. Yerkes started out in Philadelphia as a stock broker. His financial prowess was large and so were his cajones, and he stepped outside the law a few times to get what he wanted. After the fire of 1871, Yerkes lost a ton of money along with pretty much everyone else, and his financial indiscretions were too big to ignore. After serving 7 months of a 33 month sentence, Yerkes packed it up and moved to Chicago. He managed to rebuild his fortune through his charm and natural financial genius (and his willingness to bribe anyone at anytime). But he wanted more, much more, so he started buying up shares of streetcar companies and dreamed the "El" into reality, just in time for the World's Fair. Not surprisingly to anyone at the time, Yerkes was illegally maneuvering to get what he wanted, and the Tribune and reform-mayor Carter Harrison started to hone in on him. Conned into trying to improve his reputation, Yerkes gave a ton of money for the world's largest telescope at the University of Chicago, aptly named “Yerkes Observatory.” But it didn’t help; he ended up being run out of town by an angry public and miffed politicians. Not to be shoved aside, Yerkes sprouted up again in London, where he oversaw construction of the London Underground.
We hate to say it (or love to hate to say it), but its men like Yerkes that make the Windy City so very windy.
You can listen to John Franch and John Wasik on WGN Radio-AM 720 on Wed., at 9:05P.M.