Ask Chicagoist: Who is Ogilvie?
By Thales Exoo in Miscellaneous on Dec 22, 2006 8:20PM
Who is Ogilvie and why does he have a transportation center?
After the shootings there a couple of weeks ago, Ogilvie Transportation Center made its way into the national limelight for an afternoon. Normally, though, Ogilvie (often still called by its former name, North Western Station) just sits there stoically, surrounded by Randolph, Madison, Clinton, and Canal Streets, as 40,000 passengers every day use Metra's Union Pacific lines. Which, remember, are operating on special holiday schedules today.
The old Chicago and North Western Terminal, built in 1911, was replaced with the ultra-modern Citicorp Building in 1987. The former name became a bit obsolete when the Chicago and North Western line was bought by the Union Pacific Railroad, and so the station was renamed after lifelong train fanatic Ogilvie in 1997.
The Ogilvie in question here is Richard B. Ogilvie, former Republican governor of Illinois (1969-1973). He was a board member of the Milwaukee Road (the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad), and actually was in charge of its eventual sale to the Soo Line Railroad. While he was governor, he founded the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), the parent agency of Metra, CTA, and Pace. He also served on a committee focusing on Amtrak and its federal subsidy.
We can only assume he also had a really kick ass model train setup in his basement and an unrivaled collection of conductor hats.
He's also well known for being the Republican governor to Democrat Paul Simon's Lt. governor — the only time that has ever happened in Illinois history (and it won't happen again, as after it happened once our entire state constitution was changed so the two offices were no longer voted in separately). He also got all kinds of fans by instituting our state income tax.
Ogilvie should not, of course, be confused with bad home perms from the 80s.
Image via stevevance.
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