Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: When the stock market crashed in nineteen twenty nine, a
Speaker 1: country that was in the midst of the Roaring twenties,
Speaker 1: a time of excess and excitement, ground to a halt.
Speaker 1: In Chicago, a booming downtown full of bustling business people
Speaker 1: transformed almost overnight into long lines of citizens, endlessly waiting.
Speaker 1: People waited for work, waited for money, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: waited for food. In November nineteen thirty, a soup kitchen
Speaker 1: sprang up on State Street to feed the hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of job bless Chicagoans. It had no name, just
Speaker 1: a huge marquee out front that read free soup, coffee
Speaker 1: and doughnuts for the unemployed. Every morning, the State Street
Speaker 1: Soup Kitchen served up three hundred and fifty loaves of bread,
Speaker 1: one hundred dozen rolls, and thirty pounds of coffee, lunch,
Speaker 1: and dinner was hundreds of gallons of fresh made soup.
Speaker 1: No one was required to prove their financial need, and
Speaker 1: no hungry soul was ever denied a second helping. It
Speaker 1: was a mystery. The whole world was broken, and yet
Speaker 1: somehow this unnamed soup kitchen, not affiliated with any major
Speaker 1: companies or charities, had the means to feed over two
Speaker 1: thousand people each day. Nearly a week later, Chicago's soup
Speaker 1: kitchen mystery was finally sold. The newspapers reported that the
Speaker 1: Windy City's big hearted benefactor was none other than the
Speaker 1: notorious mobster Al Capone. Despite his reputation as a murderous grifter,
Speaker 1: helping the common man wasn't always out of character for
Speaker 1: Public Enemy Number one. He'd been giving handouts to orphans
Speaker 1: and widows as the country crashed into the Great Depression.
Speaker 1: Even before the economy crashed. He thought of himself as
Speaker 1: kind of a capitalist philanthropist. He was a businessman, he said,
Speaker 1: who simply gave the people of Chicago what they wanted,
Speaker 1: never mind that what they wanted was alcohol made illegal
Speaker 1: under prohibition. Capone acted like he funded the soup kitchen
Speaker 1: out of the goodness of his own heart, and while
Speaker 1: there may be some truth to this, the reality was
Speaker 1: more complicated. Just like when he sold alcohol to beer
Speaker 1: craving Midwestern nurse during Prohibition, Capone rarely did anything without
Speaker 1: something being in it for him. Shortly before the stock
Speaker 1: market crashed, Capone had been accused of perpetrating a gangman
Speaker 1: shooting the press dubbed the Saint Valentine's Day massacre. On
Speaker 1: February fourteenth of nineteen twenty nine, seven members of the
Speaker 1: North Side Gang, one of al Capone's biggest rivals, were
Speaker 1: found to death execution style in a Chicago garage, and
Speaker 1: while he was never found guilty of orchestrating the hit,
Speaker 1: most people believed that Capone was behind the attack. Shocked
Speaker 1: by the brutality of the massacre, public opinion turned against
Speaker 1: al Capone. By opening the Soup Kitchen in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 1: Capone thought that he could get the public, if not
Speaker 1: the police, back on his side, and not surprisingly, it worked.
Speaker 1: Al Capone achieved nearly full hero status for his generosity,
Speaker 1: even if the bounty of food and funds he offered
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly his. You see, as part of his racket,
Speaker 1: al Capone bribed and bullied supplies out of businesses under
Speaker 1: his protection. In one case, a grocery store claimed that
Speaker 1: he sent a shipment of ducks to another charity to
Speaker 1: be put into Christmas baskets for the poor. Somehow, the
Speaker 1: ducks mysteriously ended up in al Capone's kitchen. Despite its
Speaker 1: dubious food sources, the soup kitchen continued operating until April
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty one, when it abruptly closed its doors.
Speaker 1: Just a few months later, al Capone was found guilty
Speaker 1: of federal tax evasion, which put him in prison and
Speaker 1: put an end to his control over Chicago's vice. Whether
Speaker 1: people believe that he was a good hearted Robin Hood
Speaker 1: or the Napoleon of crime, Capone's kitchen did some real
Speaker 1: good in a city down on its luck. Still, because
Speaker 1: of its association with Capone, eating at the kitchen was
Speaker 1: sometimes a trip into the city's cd underbelly. For example,
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner of nineteen thirty, nearly five thousand Chicagoans celebrated
Speaker 1: with a hot meal of beef stew and cranberry sauce
Speaker 1: at Capone's kitchen. The reason why it was beef stew
Speaker 1: and not traditional turkey well. Earlier that week, someone had
Speaker 1: stolen one thousand turkeys from a grocery shipment, and al
Speaker 1: Capone was a cheater, a gambler, and a murderer. But
Speaker 1: by serving turkey, he would have reinforced that reputation, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to make clear to the world that he
Speaker 1: was no Thanksgiving thief. Hear ye, hear ye. This tavern
Speaker 1: dust possess beds of uncomfortable quality. The location is poor,
Speaker 1: the breakfast inadequate, and the stabling fees unconscionable. This humble
Speaker 1: writer suggests that ye seek accommodations elsewhere. That's the type
Speaker 1: of review that you might have found on Yelp or
Speaker 1: trip Advisor, if either service had existed in seventeen eighty nine. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there was no Internet and no review aggregate sites available
Speaker 1: during America's earliest days, but that didn't stop one dissatisfied
Speaker 1: tourist from recording his opinions. Just a few months after
Speaker 1: the constitution was ratified, a former Revolutionary war officer embarked
Speaker 1: on a unique journey. He wanted to get to know
Speaker 1: the nation he had helped create, and thought there was
Speaker 1: no better way to do that than by seeing America
Speaker 1: from the road. While most well off tourist vacation in
Speaker 1: places like Saratoga and Niagara Falls, he would be stepping
Speaker 1: off the beaten track to the more distant rural communities
Speaker 1: that comprise New England and the American South. During the journey,
Speaker 1: he took detailed notes remarking on everything from the quality
Speaker 1: of the roads he traveled to the people he met.
Speaker 1: But his most brutal commentary was reserved for the inns
Speaker 1: and taverns where he spent the night. The officer's private
Speaker 1: journals contain one scathing review after another. He wrote that
Speaker 1: Jacob's tavern in Thompson was and I quote not a
Speaker 1: good house, often intolerable, bad road, while mister Allen's inn
Speaker 1: was and I quote a very indifferent house without stabling. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Buck Tavern and Delaware garnered some rare, if not faint,
Speaker 1: praise when he called it a better house than the
Speaker 1: appearances indicate. Now, these negative reviews make up the bulk
Speaker 1: of the officer's diary from the period, and that might
Speaker 1: tempt you to write him off as a fussy traveler.
Speaker 1: Some tourists just can't be pleased after all. But more
Speaker 1: likely he put so much emphasis on accommodations because he
Speaker 1: knew how important they would become as the country grew.
Speaker 1: Inns and taverns have been an important form of the
Speaker 1: infrastructure going back to the days of the Roman Empire.
Speaker 1: Travelers couldn't get very far without a place to rest
Speaker 1: and feed their horses, so before the advent of railroads,
Speaker 1: these businesses were truly critical for long distance travel. Along
Speaker 1: with safe roads, they made a territory a nation. At
Speaker 1: the same time, inns served a secondary function as public
Speaker 1: gathering places. They were the spots that locals would head
Speaker 1: to for a drink and a meal at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the places where people would swap stories
Speaker 1: and discuss which politicians they supported. Initially, most inns were
Speaker 1: simply public houses or pubs, or you could book a
Speaker 1: room for the night. Now technically licensed taverns in early
Speaker 1: America were supposed to offer a minimum of three beds
Speaker 1: and stables for six horses, but as the officer discovered
Speaker 1: in his travels, many towns didn't have a single business
Speaker 1: that met those standards. But after his visit things started
Speaker 1: to change. Local mayors were so embarrassed to have him
Speaker 1: receive poor lodgings in their community. They immediately enacted plans
Speaker 1: to erect more substantial hotels. And that's without him ever
Speaker 1: bothering to publish his opinions. Truth be told, he didn't
Speaker 1: have to because their guest wasn't just any revolutionary war officer.
Speaker 1: He was none other than President George Washington, who had
Speaker 1: just been elected to his first term in office. His
Speaker 1: tours from seventeen eighty nine to seventeen ninety one were
Speaker 1: away for him to see the country that he'd be
Speaker 1: leading and to meet the people that he would serve
Speaker 1: as president. And thanks to those tours, America is now
Speaker 1: full of hotels that once hosted the first president. Many
Speaker 1: of them proudly advertised the fact, even if Washington himself
Speaker 1: didn't have glowing things to say about them. The good
Speaker 1: news is you can always check for yourself. Washington's private
Speaker 1: journals are all online now, as accessible as any Yelp review,
Speaker 1: So the next time you're planning some travel, consider checking
Speaker 1: them out for some recommendations. After all, who would you
Speaker 1: trust more some anonymous wanna be travel blogger or America's
Speaker 1: first President. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.