Film of 1940's Chicago found at garage sale

Factual Questions
1

Quite a special view of historic Chicago. The entire 32 min film can be watched free on Vimeo.

A short sample of the video and some still photos is included with the news article.

I thought the board’s Chicago members would enjoy seeing this historical view of their city.

2

Thanks!

4

“Chicago - the most American of American Cities!”

Love it! Thanks for sharing this. :smiley:

5

The license plates—orange on black—also date it to 1945.

6

Holy crap! I felt like Marty McFly watching that!!

7

Quite a nice piece of work. Could it be ‘easily’ returned to full color?

Speaking of ‘color’…I don’t recall seeing even one person other than whites.

Can anyone identify the baseball players?

8

Shot of Wrigley at 1:08 is really interesting… there’s what looks like a set of grain silos between Clark & the field itself and what looks like a “road” that isn’t there anything more leading back towards to the southwest… seemingly an old rail line that leads back to the Brown Line… you can see the path an as alley and filled-in right of way now.

9

I think they caught Stan Musial playing first base at Wrigley for the Cards. His best year, perhaps, either that or 1948.

I can’t find a #4 on the Cubs roster, or the White Sox for 1946

10

Cubs manager Charlie Grimm is the guy seen playing catch in foul territory.

The uniforms indicate that’s a Reds/White Sox exhibition game with Luke Appling playing first for some reason.

11

Now I see who that is playing first for the Sox: Kerby Farrell.

12

I suppose it could be a regular season game with the Indians visiting and the red & white strips on their socks blurred into a solid block of red.

13

Assuming it was all filmed in just a couple of months, it’s summer 1945. All the cars have orange on black license plates.

The rail line you can see next to Wrigley Field was the Milwaukee Road (previously discussed), a line that originally went as far north as Wilmette. Near Irving Park Road, what’s now the Red Line L jogs over to use the same right-of-way, and eventually the L took over the trackage, even delivering freight cars at night into the 1970s. Those are coal (not grain) silos near the ballpark. Collins & Wiese Coal Co. was where the McDonalds is now.

14

Stan Musial was serving in the military in 1945 so if the license plates date this to summer 1945 then that’s some other Cardinal, or maybe they filmed inside Wrigley in 1944 or 46?

Thanks for pointing me to more info about the Milwaukee Road rail line Mr Downtown… :slight_smile:

15

Here are all the MLB uniforms used in 1945, none in the film match those used by St. Louis. Assuming those images are more accurate than the ones in the book I have, the Indians are indeed the ones visiting the Sox.

16

Kerby Farrell was in four games with the Indians visiting.

Going by the uniform numbers, it’s the August 30 game with Indians pitcher Pete Center (#40) covering first for one play.

17

you are correct. Not Musial.