Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Burnette. Elizabeth, it's Mearen Burnette.
Speaker 3: Hey, it's me Elizabeth Dutton.
Speaker 2: I got a question. May know something ridiculous?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: No, not Helen Thomas. Me.
Speaker 5: Okay, Zaron Burnett from the Associated Foreign Press. Uh, did
Speaker 5: you see this story recently reported about the hikers who
Speaker 5: lost their buddy in New York?
Speaker 3: They're all worried. Oh yeah, so these these two guys
Speaker 3: they were hiking in the Adirondacks in New York, right,
Speaker 3: and they got really worried because the third guy who
Speaker 3: was with him died. Oh no, I know, right.
Speaker 5: So they they then see that they call them stewarts,
Speaker 5: like the park Rangers to see the steward, like on
Speaker 5: the mountain. They go, hey, we're lost and our buddy died,
Speaker 5: and so like in the park Rangers, Stuart, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you guys are messed up. And I just looks at
Speaker 5: him and knows they're messed up. Mean, while these guys
Speaker 5: are like, okay, he's not helping. They like leave, I guess,
Speaker 5: and they like call nine one one and they report
Speaker 5: that their buddy's dead. They're lost or on this mountain Meanwhile,
Speaker 5: after they called nine one one, uh, this Stewart was
Speaker 5: able to determine that they were incorrect. The friend uh
Speaker 5: then called and said that they were not dead. I'm
Speaker 5: totally fine, guys. You guys went left, I went right.
Speaker 5: It was like so basically they were that high on shrooms.
Speaker 5: But they allot these two guys convinced themselves the third
Speaker 5: guy was dead and went through a whole thing. I
Speaker 5: had like this, the forest rangers looking for him. They
Speaker 5: had nine one one looking for him. And then the
Speaker 5: buddy called like, hey, I'm lost. They're like, are you
Speaker 5: with two hikers? You want a mountain because I need
Speaker 5: to connect you guys, And so they connected him and
Speaker 5: camp goes.
Speaker 2: Off on a different path. I guess they turned around.
Speaker 3: He's not there, Like he's dead.
Speaker 2: We thought you was Exactly.
Speaker 5: Craig died. They meet up at the campsite. That must
Speaker 5: have been like one probably second coming of like, since
Speaker 5: Jesus you're.
Speaker 3: Dad man, have you come back now?
Speaker 2: They belong to the Church of Greg Exactly. It's ridiculous,
Speaker 2: very ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3: I love ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Stealing land, but not in the name of colonialism. Oh oh,
Speaker 2: this is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 2: Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
Speaker 2: and one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I know you don't.
Speaker 2: I know, I done heard that. This one comes to
Speaker 2: us courtesy of Hailey Huntley.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Hailey Huntley.
Speaker 2: Haley wanted to show some criminal Chicago pride.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, right.
Speaker 2: You and I both love Chicago.
Speaker 3: Shout out Chicago.
Speaker 2: It's a great city.
Speaker 3: I love the whole place, south side, north side, all
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Everything. It's fantastic. It's one of my favorite places. You
Speaker 2: know what's really cool about it. My cousin lives there. Oh,
Speaker 2: I mean, so that's God's super cool. That makes it
Speaker 2: for him. But Chicago, right, it always brings the realness, yes,
Speaker 2: And it brings the crime.
Speaker 3: Yes, which is it's America's best kept.
Speaker 2: Secret, it really is. It brings crime in so many ways.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Yes, also many of.
Speaker 2: Them outside of what we would talk about here.
Speaker 3: This is true, very true, has a reputation.
Speaker 2: But I've got a ninety nine percent verder free one
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: Do you take a lot of research?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really did I want to tell you about
Speaker 2: George Wellington's streeter?
Speaker 3: Okay, George Wellington Street.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is Haley tipped us off. This is
Speaker 2: a good one.
Speaker 3: Good look.
Speaker 2: He was a native son of Flint, Michigan.
Speaker 3: Born in Cargo Transplant.
Speaker 2: Eighteen thirty seven. Whoa so okay at that time Flint
Speaker 2: was a frontier summing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was there when they found He's like, yeah,
Speaker 5: he's like, we should call this place Flint.
Speaker 2: He's there. He was born into this huge family, thirteen kids.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: The family was total.
Speaker 3: Had nothing to do back then, just a lot to.
Speaker 2: Create a lot of just what you got to churn
Speaker 2: out workers for the farm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of bed tests and a lot of spares.
Speaker 3: Disease taken a couple of them. Let's be real, say
Speaker 3: of getting kids.
Speaker 2: Through exactly, and you know, you got a lot of duds.
Speaker 2: Such a high standard, it's like poor poor health and hygiene,
Speaker 2: you're eating lead.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just it's not a good time.
Speaker 2: The family though, salt of the earth. Yes, good working
Speaker 2: class folks, hard working, upright, very patriotic military family. His
Speaker 2: great grandpa fought in the American Revolution.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: His grandfather served in the War of eighteen twelve. Oh,
Speaker 2: like this family didn't play deep American roots right serious,
Speaker 2: as was common for the freedom its freedom's.
Speaker 3: Never freez established it and kept it.
Speaker 2: You pay a hefty hefty feet.
Speaker 3: Yes, generation to generation.
Speaker 2: It's so it's common at that time among working class
Speaker 2: families for the kids to not really have a formal
Speaker 2: education beyond elementary school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's just what happened.
Speaker 2: You know, my grandpa only made it to sixth grade.
Speaker 3: There you go, there you go.
Speaker 2: I only made it to fourth grade.
Speaker 3: There's backwards.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going backwards in my family.
Speaker 3: I don't know anything past third grade.
Speaker 2: I never went to kindergarten.
Speaker 3: I still can't spell fourth grade?
Speaker 2: Where am I? Where?
Speaker 3: Pants?
Speaker 2: Are these? My pants? So he didn't go past elementary school. Yes,
Speaker 2: but he had something better street smarts.
Speaker 3: Ah, streeter smart.
Speaker 2: Oh there it is, good job you're learning. Yeah, as
Speaker 2: these street smarts, I feel like flint. Street smarts just
Speaker 2: hit different, maybe even back in frontier times. So Streeter
Speaker 2: he also had another quality. He loved spectacle, the able, razzle, dazzle,
Speaker 2: the carnival.
Speaker 3: Ah, who doesn't you know?
Speaker 2: I don't know? No, actually I do well not really.
Speaker 3: It depends not a huge.
Speaker 2: On the situation. So his early career Streeter's early cruise
Speaker 2: basically like a nineteenth century picuresque novel. Seriously, he worked
Speaker 2: as a logger and a trapper. Oh wow, he was
Speaker 2: an ice cutter on Saginaw Bay. Yes, he got a
Speaker 2: gig as a deckhand on vessels that navigated Canada's Georgian Bay.
Speaker 2: He did a little mining in the iron and copper
Speaker 2: regions of Upper Peninsula. He was a sideshow barker at
Speaker 2: a carnival.
Speaker 3: Dude, are you kidding.
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding you. It was around this time that
Speaker 2: a war broke out, the American Civil War.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: As friend of the show Axel Rose once wondered, what's
Speaker 2: so civil about war anyway? Cue the whistling, It's Chinese
Speaker 2: because christ Civil War, the War of Southern Aggression. Uh.
Speaker 2: A Streeter enlisted in the Union Army, and he set
Speaker 2: off to fight for him. Yeah, he set off. I'm
Speaker 2: going to fight the traders.
Speaker 3: It's a family tradition at this point, a family tradition.
Speaker 2: And he did a good job of it. He was
Speaker 2: really good at it. He earned the rank of captain.
Speaker 3: Damn.
Speaker 2: It was a title that he No, I'm never sarcast you. No.
Speaker 2: He used that title for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: Captain post bellum everyone called everyone called him cap.
Speaker 3: You very rarely hear that post post.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that cap.
Speaker 3: Everyone called him cap, not captain.
Speaker 2: No Cap. He said that he fought in all these
Speaker 2: major battles, Missionary Ridge, who knows. Here's the thing, there's
Speaker 2: no reliable military record that shows that he served as
Speaker 2: a Union officer or even as an enlisted man. So
Speaker 2: there are all these historians and biograpy.
Speaker 3: Make cap records. Not that hard.
Speaker 2: We make records for that. So people have cast out
Speaker 2: on that the National Archives and Civil War pension records
Speaker 2: don't have any evidence of his service under the name
Speaker 2: George Wellington Streeter.
Speaker 3: They were the best of the record keepers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean, he's born in eighteen thirty seven, right,
Speaker 2: so he was eligible. But we don't really know what
Speaker 2: he was doing. Tho.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing he was running the rivers.
Speaker 2: He was a cap in spirit. He already and like
Speaker 2: at this point he already had a reputation for exaggerating
Speaker 2: and like fabricating his.
Speaker 3: Backstorylab I'm telling you he was the model for Captain Crunch.
Speaker 3: He had a river boat, he had hat going around.
Speaker 2: His persona was like carefully constructed, not doing Captain Crunch.
Speaker 2: He posed as this war hero and that would get
Speaker 2: him sympathy from veterans, populous, working class bogs. He would
Speaker 2: portray himself as this like self made American fought for freedom,
Speaker 2: and this would become central to his myth making later on.
Speaker 3: I always tell people that I was an active soldier
Speaker 3: in the in the in the Cold War. I tell
Speaker 3: people I thought for the Soviets, and I give them
Speaker 3: the look and they're like, you aren't even old enough.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, you believe me. I like that make
Speaker 3: people's day weirder, like.
Speaker 2: The front lines of the Cold That's pretty.
Speaker 3: Good right there in the front lines.
Speaker 2: Well, like Streeter right, his myth making was essential to
Speaker 2: his next gig. He bought a traveling circus.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this.
Speaker 2: Thing had all sorts of exotic animals, right, I'm talking porcupines, deer, otters, donkeys.
Speaker 2: He had a white he had a white Normandy hog.
Speaker 2: What is a white Normandy hog? And all that came
Speaker 2: up were like recipes for some dish. But it's like
Speaker 2: Normandy pig I saw some photos.
Speaker 3: You know, is it like a big is it attractive?
Speaker 2: It's got long flutter? He didn't say like, hey, come
Speaker 2: look at that. How he said, look everyone, it's a
Speaker 2: white elephant. Like he told people, is a weight over
Speaker 2: it's an easy mistake to make their.
Speaker 3: Does it have like a trunk? No?
Speaker 2: In all fairness, though, the thing was ten feet long
Speaker 2: and weighed over fifteen hundred pounds. Whatt I paid a
Speaker 2: nickel to go see this?
Speaker 3: I would do that. Ain't a hog now?
Speaker 2: Once you paid your nickel and you're in there and
Speaker 2: they're like, that's not an elephant, and then you're just like,
Speaker 2: I'm dizzy. The fumes in.
Speaker 3: The crowd whatever, that's like the grandfather of hog Zilla.
Speaker 2: That's not a big old pig. A big.
Speaker 3: So a lot of plays to drive Arkansas crazy.
Speaker 2: Along the way, he picked up.
Speaker 3: A wife money Impressed by the hog, he railed.
Speaker 2: The circus with him. They were our couple.
Speaker 3: Community.
Speaker 2: Yeah. When the circus folded, so did their marriage. See
Speaker 2: many signed on to be with a circus baron like
Speaker 2: a big dog. She didn't sign on to be with
Speaker 2: a failed circus owner. So she bounced out. She took
Speaker 2: all the money he had left with her. There are
Speaker 2: some who say that she went off to become a
Speaker 2: vaudeville star. Oh I I could find no evidence of that,
Speaker 2: but like, what do I know. I'm just a simple
Speaker 2: country lark. I just work here, lady. Yeah, yeah, so Streeter,
Speaker 2: he worked best with a partner. Sounds like in business,
Speaker 2: in romance, in life in hogs. So it wasn't long
Speaker 2: before he met and married Maria Mulholland. Oh yeah, no
Speaker 2: he I think the many took the hog wrote. But
Speaker 2: so Maria, right, she's this spitfire, she's feisty, feisty. Gasp.
Speaker 2: She became his lifelong partner in both legitimate and illegitimate endeavors.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so.
Speaker 3: Good for him.
Speaker 2: Hey he bumped her?
Speaker 3: Oh he did?
Speaker 2: Right, or die Little Bonnie and Clydes. He bums around
Speaker 2: as like a ship's navigator on Lake Michigan for a.
Speaker 3: While, bumps around, or bums around.
Speaker 2: He bumps around. Oops, right, he bummed around, bummed around? Right?
Speaker 2: Then maybe headed for dry lands land ho settled in
Speaker 2: Chicago in the eighteen seventies. Something happened in Chicago in
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy one. That's right, Elizabeth. It was the Great Chicago.
Speaker 3: Fire, right, Yeah, so it was reportedly it.
Speaker 2: Was ignited late one night when we were all in bed.
Speaker 2: Old Lady O'Leary kept a lantern in the shed when
Speaker 2: the cow kicked it over. That's what we all said
Speaker 2: to be a hot time in the old town. Tonight
Speaker 2: got fire, fire, fire, fire, hot town. Someone was a
Speaker 2: camp counselor around here.
Speaker 3: I'll give you two guests.
Speaker 2: The fire was so brutal it burned more than three
Speaker 2: square miles of the sat.
Speaker 3: The London fire and Chicago fire like the Great Fire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it killed more than three hundred people. It left
Speaker 2: more than one hundred thousand people homeless.
Speaker 3: Huge.
Speaker 2: One of the structures that was lost was Colonel Woods Museum.
Speaker 3: Not Colonel Woods, it was Popcorn Currentel.
Speaker 2: It was right right on the corner of Clark and Randolph.
Speaker 2: I don't know where that is nothing sure. It was
Speaker 2: an amazing monstie of oddities and antiquities, birds, bugs, snakes, paintings,
Speaker 2: no hogs, paintings, model ships, but also a panorama of
Speaker 2: the city of London.
Speaker 3: Just a little boys room that they turned into a museum.
Speaker 2: A rifle owned by Daniel Boobe.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you this is a scale model.
Speaker 2: Of the Parthenon, a dinosaur skeleton, mummies, and papyrus sheets
Speaker 2: that were once the property of Joseph Smith, founder of
Speaker 2: the Mormons.
Speaker 3: Maybe a twelve year old boy historical interest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a twelve year old boy with maybe one
Speaker 2: friend two if they're feeling.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Everything was lost in the Chicago fire, but Colonel Wood
Speaker 2: didn't let that stop him. He picked up a business partner,
Speaker 2: a co owner, George Streeter, and together they reopened the museum.
Speaker 3: Just a block away.
Speaker 2: They found a theater that was like one block over,
Speaker 2: just outside of.
Speaker 3: The burn zone I told you about.
Speaker 2: And he's like, I know, I'm a hogman, Like I just.
Speaker 3: Wanted to one thing. I can partnership a hog man.
Speaker 2: But I think I can get into the museum gig.
Speaker 2: They started collecting stuff. Yeah, it took a few years,
Speaker 2: but they eventually reopened, this time with even more stuff
Speaker 2: crammed in there. And it was a big hit really,
Speaker 2: But for whatever reason, Streeter cashed.
Speaker 3: Out of the venture, out of the curiosity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, I'm no longer curious, which is good
Speaker 2: because the place burned down again less than a decade later.
Speaker 2: I mean, you imagine the dust and the must oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and when you're building everything out of wood, everything.
Speaker 2: Wood and oily rags. That's how they built everything in
Speaker 2: the insolated with oily rags. By that time, though, like
Speaker 2: Streeter had moved on. He became a salesman at county fairs.
Speaker 3: He moved up in the perfect him.
Speaker 2: When he got tired of that, like he was doing
Speaker 2: like the slap chop stuff and like, yeah, exactly. Uh.
Speaker 2: When he got tired of that, he went back to
Speaker 2: Chicago and he did a short stint as the owner
Speaker 2: of the Apollo Theater there. It's no relation to the
Speaker 2: New York City. Yeah, So he pops up here and
Speaker 2: there in the papers like sometimes were good, like when
Speaker 2: he was helping shore up a house that had collapsed. Uh,
Speaker 2: Like he and some other dudes were like, let's let's
Speaker 2: help this guy.
Speaker 3: Let's play this.
Speaker 2: And then once he was he and his family were
Speaker 2: the victim of a crime because they were living on
Speaker 2: this boat and got burgled when they went to the
Speaker 2: park that made the paper. He acquired a steamship called
Speaker 2: the Rutan. Let's get back on the r e U
Speaker 2: T A n routin there you go. It was Maria
Speaker 2: who named it. So don't blame me. I don't why
Speaker 2: she chose the name. Who knows, who knows, and honestly,
Speaker 2: who cares it is. So here's the thing about Maria.
Speaker 2: She was a complete alcoholic, like a raging drunk. I'm
Speaker 2: talking like week long benders where no one knows where.
Speaker 3: She is, face the bottle and whack out.
Speaker 2: Streeter was cool with this. This is quote quote. It
Speaker 2: don't matter where she is. She's having a good time
Speaker 2: and I'll come home when she's ready.
Speaker 5: Like she's his dog, a really old cats.
Speaker 2: He respects the spirit. I So she had a lot
Speaker 2: of adventures piloted from the inside of a bottle. And
Speaker 2: on one of those benders she made a pal, a
Speaker 2: guy named Captain Bowen. So he told her all about
Speaker 2: a revolution going down in Honduras and he's like, you know,
Speaker 2: there's this business opportunity for us up here. Anyone with
Speaker 2: maritime skills in a boat and it tastes for danger
Speaker 2: and adventure. You gotta get into gun running.
Speaker 3: Gun running.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he's like, you know what, you take a
Speaker 2: load of weapons down there.
Speaker 3: The CIA doesn't exist yet, because it's going to be, So.
Speaker 2: You're going to pilot your craft up and down the
Speaker 2: Honduran rivers, selling the wares to the revolutionaries, just just
Speaker 2: you know, put a sign on.
Speaker 3: There, trustworthy by gun. Yeah, guns, like.
Speaker 2: A lemonade stand sign. There's some debate about whether or
Speaker 2: not a Streeter actually did this. He told everyone that
Speaker 2: he wanted to charm, that he had transported weapons by
Speaker 2: boat to like a bunch of different Central American uprisings.
Speaker 2: Not just he told tales of his daring do outwitting
Speaker 2: foreign governments, like narrowly escaping capture. Because you know, he's
Speaker 2: a military man from a long line of military men,
Speaker 2: sure for this, And it was on those runs where
Speaker 2: he honed his nautical skills. It made him a true salt,
Speaker 2: and it made him more hard boiled than he was before.
Speaker 2: So that's what he said. Anyway. The claims have never
Speaker 2: been substantiated so far, have no shipping records, no contemporary
Speaker 2: newspaper accounts, no government documents like verifying this gun running actorpts.
Speaker 5: He was just like sitting at the beach just staring
Speaker 5: at boats, going I'm running guns on that one thing.
Speaker 2: Though, Just because there's no paperwork doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Like paperwork. To run guns to a foreign.
Speaker 3: Government a successful crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not something you want.
Speaker 3: The paper you definitely want, I'll give it to them. Check.
Speaker 3: Maybe he did it.
Speaker 2: But I must say that historians generally view his alleged
Speaker 2: gun running the same way they viewed his supposed Civil
Speaker 2: War service, like part of the larger than life persona created. Yeah,
Speaker 2: gun running was a genuine occupation for some people, like
Speaker 2: adventurers in the eighteen seventies eighteen eighties ADOR's Panama. So
Speaker 2: Streeter could have borrowed elements from like those real stories
Speaker 2: to fabricate his you know, was his myth.
Speaker 3: Making at the right bar in the right marina or merchant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great website, American Hauntings from Troy Taylor
Speaker 2: has an interesting section on Streeter really tracks all these tales.
Speaker 2: So historians they say that he Streeter invented these myths
Speaker 2: and legends in order to look patriotic, rebellious. It gave
Speaker 2: him an air of global experience, and it backed up
Speaker 2: that he was capable of commanding ships and like handling weaponry.
Speaker 3: Worked brilliantly for Teddy Rosel, and he did that right
Speaker 3: all the way to the President.
Speaker 2: But see that's the thing he did to the presidency.
Speaker 2: Why was it important for George Street?
Speaker 3: Why was it important for George Streeter.
Speaker 2: When we returned from this commercial break, we'll look into Yes,
Speaker 2: welcome back.
Speaker 3: Gun running.
Speaker 2: I know, right, be fun.
Speaker 3: I was just sitting on the beach dreaming about it.
Speaker 2: Seventies gun running, Yeah.
Speaker 3: On a boat that's a steamship, would be some cool stuff.
Speaker 2: And then you're all like, heloha, who I have the gun?
Speaker 3: Did you want to keep Hawaii?
Speaker 2: That was a lot of ad time, by the way,
Speaker 2: at least I'm assuming it is. We have no idea
Speaker 2: how many ads?
Speaker 3: What ads? I don't listen to ads.
Speaker 2: Don't blame it.
Speaker 3: I never listened to.
Speaker 2: Don't blame us.
Speaker 3: I only I don't watch ads. I don't keep I
Speaker 3: love them. You know what, The ads are the best part.
Speaker 3: That's what I listened to shows for.
Speaker 2: Just for the ads.
Speaker 3: The show.
Speaker 2: I skipped the show part.
Speaker 3: Just get back to the ads exactly. They're fast and
Speaker 3: quick about things I'm interested in.
Speaker 2: You know what, zaren close. Yes, I want you to
Speaker 2: picture it. It's July eighteen eighty six. You are a
Speaker 2: Chicago cop walking the beat along the waterfront on the
Speaker 2: north shore of Lake Michigan. As you come to the
Speaker 2: foot of Superior Street, you notice something. A steamship has
Speaker 2: run aground on the sandbar just off the shore. It's
Speaker 2: a muggy summer day. Carriages roll down the road behind
Speaker 2: you as you stare out at the boat. The rain
Speaker 2: from a common summer afternoon storm has just passed. The
Speaker 2: air is thick and oppressive. You reach behind you and
Speaker 2: peel your uniform shirt and coat away from your sweaty back,
Speaker 2: flapping him a little just to get some air in there.
Speaker 2: You walk down Michigan Avenue a bit to take note
Speaker 2: of the name of the ship routon. You'll send word
Speaker 2: to get a tug to get this thing out of here,
Speaker 2: but first you need to make contact with those on
Speaker 2: the vessel. You blow your whistle call out towards the
Speaker 2: deck of the steamship. A man appears. A slight man
Speaker 2: with a big sam Elliot mustache, pops up, adjusting the
Speaker 2: pork pie hat on his head. You ask him what happened.
Speaker 2: He tells you that he got straight at it on
Speaker 2: the sandbar in the storm. This just can't be true.
Speaker 2: That was not much of a storm. You ask the
Speaker 2: man his name, Cap Streeter. He yells back, the thick
Speaker 2: ropeline slapped lazily against the hull of the ship as
Speaker 2: it gently rocks with the waves that lap at the sandbar.
Speaker 2: Just then you hear footsteps. The local alderman approaches you.
Speaker 2: He's heard about the stranded boat and came down to
Speaker 2: see what was what. It comes from a long line
Speaker 2: of sailors on this massive lake, steady talented mariners. What
Speaker 2: I'm trying to say, is Aaron, is that this man
Speaker 2: knows boats and piloting the very same. He shouts over
Speaker 2: to the man on the boat that it looks to
Speaker 2: him like he ran the vessel into the shallows on purpose,
Speaker 2: came into it head on. Still, we'll get someone out
Speaker 2: here right away to get you loose and on your way,
Speaker 2: tells the man. Streeter stares you both down, and then
Speaker 2: clears his throat. He tells you that the area is
Speaker 2: unclaimed territory, and not the alderman or anyone else can
Speaker 2: tell him to move. He's outside the jurisdiction of the city.
Speaker 2: In fact, he continues, he hereby declares this little spit
Speaker 2: of land the district of Lake Michigan. He announces that
Speaker 2: it is a sovereign entity under his control. Now you
Speaker 2: and the Aldermen look at each other in disbelief. A
Speaker 2: crowd has started to form, gathering to watch the spectacle
Speaker 2: of a large ship run aground, but now captivated by
Speaker 2: this blossoming standoff. You command Streeter to disembark. He laughs
Speaker 2: and goes below deck. You grab a paper boy who
Speaker 2: stopped with the crowd to take in the show. You
Speaker 2: send him to the precinct building to get back up
Speaker 2: for you. You tell him to convey the urgency of
Speaker 2: this situation. The Alderman tells you he's head in the city,
Speaker 2: hauling at the mayor. You've got a situation on your hands, erin,
Speaker 2: and it's about to get way bigger than you or
Speaker 2: the Alderman could ever imagine. So at the time that
Speaker 2: Streeter ran the routine into the sandbarsh Cocko was really
Speaker 2: rapidly expanding. So the rebuild from the fire was like
Speaker 2: chug along, almost mostly completed. People were investing in Chicago,
Speaker 2: and developers wanted more land. They so they did like
Speaker 2: they'd done here in San Francisco. They used landfill to
Speaker 2: extend the shoreline. So in San Francisco, and I think
Speaker 2: I mentioned this in the Shanghai Kelly episode. So many
Speaker 2: ships came pouring in during the gold Rush, depositing hopefuls
Speaker 2: at the foot of Market Street, and passengers and crew
Speaker 2: alike disembarked. They abandoned the ships on this marshy shore.
Speaker 2: So developers just started establishing businesses, hotels, saloons, what have
Speaker 2: you in the empty ships. And then they began to
Speaker 2: dismantle them and leave them lay where Jesus flag them,
Speaker 2: filling in that muddy marshy area making more land. So
Speaker 2: blocks and blocks of downtown San Francisco are built on
Speaker 2: that rough landfill, compacted over time, but still not super stables,
Speaker 2: especially in a quake.
Speaker 3: Tunnel that you go through a ship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Monk Army station goes right through a ship well.
Speaker 2: And then there's the Millennium Tower is leaning. There are
Speaker 2: great stories. I feel like, I can't remember what book
Speaker 2: it was that I read it, where in those marshes
Speaker 2: they would drive these pilots and they would just keep going,
Speaker 2: never to be seen again. But so the same thing
Speaker 2: was going on in Chicago, right. There were ships, but
Speaker 2: most of the landfill that was created was when they
Speaker 2: contractors would just dump debris on the shore, and Streeter
Speaker 2: was all about this, so he he refuses to remove
Speaker 2: his boat. Instead, he's like inviting the contractors to come
Speaker 2: and dump junk and brick and wood, garbage whatever all
Speaker 2: around the ship, just to add real estate to his
Speaker 2: sovereign territory. Basically, with every load brought in to expand
Speaker 2: his empire, he claimed ownership of that area. So you know,
Speaker 2: if you own something, you can also sell it. At
Speaker 2: least that's the idea I've heard this. So Streeter starts
Speaker 2: selling bogus deeds to these unsuspecting buyers, and he would
Speaker 2: exploit like poor folks. He would like kind of get
Speaker 2: a lot of black families who climate thing. But he
Speaker 2: would bray about how I'm the champion of the underdog.
Speaker 2: So like, pretty soon though, he had one hundred and
Speaker 2: eighty six acres of what is now Chicago's Streeterville neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with the district?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it lasted, it did.
Speaker 2: You're probably familiar with Streeterville and you don't know it.
Speaker 2: It's the neighborhood north of the Chicago River, bounded by
Speaker 2: the river on the south Magnificent mile portion of Michigan
Speaker 2: Avenue on the west Lake, Michigan on the north and east.
Speaker 2: So basically it's the Magnificent Mile plus everything east of it.
Speaker 2: What and you know what's in that area like Navy Pier. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's Streeterville.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: And that's all Phil from him?
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah he made.
Speaker 2: I mean, the sand Bar was already sort of expansive.
Speaker 2: There were already squatters on it. They had set up
Speaker 2: all sorts of like dens of sin on there, like
Speaker 2: gambling shacks and shift bordella's.
Speaker 3: I mean, most of the Chicago is basically built on
Speaker 3: a swamp. Locals called it and think.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, and so the mayor would like evict all
Speaker 2: these little squatters off the sandbar, but people would like
Speaker 2: sneak back out there. And then Streeter comes along and
Speaker 2: it's like, no, this whole thing's mine now, let's just
Speaker 2: keep expanding it. And so others though, had already laid
Speaker 2: legal claim to the land. So the claimed land on
Speaker 2: their included plots already purchased by the Chicago Title and
Speaker 2: Trust Company Potter Palmer, who was like a huge landowner,
Speaker 2: Nathaniel Fairbank, Marshall Field, Philip Arbor. So basically the fat
Speaker 2: cats of Chicago and these fat cats. They teamed up
Speaker 2: together to get Streeter removed from their land.
Speaker 3: That's yeah.
Speaker 2: They wanted this drunken squatter gone, I mean like, and
Speaker 2: Streeter was partying it up. He threw these huge parties.
Speaker 2: He sold booze even on Sundays, which he wasn't supposed
Speaker 2: to do, And so the elites they were sending the
Speaker 2: cops out on the regular. But like Streeter resisted, he said,
Speaker 2: they had no jurisdiction off my property. He armed himself
Speaker 2: and his supporters with guns.
Speaker 3: Oh he meant it.
Speaker 2: He and Maria went medieval and poured boiling water and
Speaker 2: oil on trespassers.
Speaker 3: Are you for real?
Speaker 2: I'm definitely for They built these makeshift forts along the
Speaker 2: one and eighty six acres, and they used scrap metal
Speaker 2: for defense. The place became known as Fort Streeter. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he always called it the District of Michigan, but
Speaker 2: he pronounced it.
Speaker 3: The District district.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so everyone started calling it the district and it
Speaker 2: was like this, like mad Max style slum. Everyone who
Speaker 2: lived there was part of Streeter's army, and their battles
Speaker 2: went on for years, bad years. So if the cops
Speaker 2: couldn't get the squashed right. Palmer and Fairbank. They thought
Speaker 2: maybe the courts could, so they sued Streeters six ways
Speaker 2: to send, but Streeter always appealed and weaseled his way out.
Speaker 2: A reporter for the Chicago Tribune went to interview Streeter
Speaker 2: in his house on the land in eighteen ninety. It
Speaker 2: is the greatest article. Streeter's a great interview. So the
Speaker 2: reporter was there because Fairbank had just won his suit
Speaker 2: of forcible detainer against Streeter just the day before, and
Speaker 2: Streeter was still in the shanty on the land, though,
Speaker 2: so he told the reporter that he intended to stay
Speaker 2: put until the Supreme Court of State of Illinois tried
Speaker 2: to kick him out, and then he promised to fight
Speaker 2: them too, and with what, according to the reporter, quote
Speaker 2: with a shotgun, with a white bulldog and a stout heart.
Speaker 3: Oh bulldogs.
Speaker 2: Spot was like a fixture at the shant.
Speaker 3: Dog name was Spot.
Speaker 2: Spot. The dog was like snoozing under the table while
Speaker 2: missus Streeter cooked sausages and like Streeter sat around with
Speaker 2: some friends smoking corn cob pipes.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: I simply must read you a chunk of this article
Speaker 2: because there's no way for me to summurai into it justice.
Speaker 2: The reporter transcribes it in their vernacular and pronunciations, by
Speaker 2: the way. Quote, I've been a sailorman twenty five years,
Speaker 2: said the captain, jamming his tobacco into his pipe with
Speaker 2: his thumb, which is a trick all seamen know. And
Speaker 2: my name is G. W. Streeter, George W. Streeter, George
Speaker 2: Wellington Streeter, said Missus Streeter. But I'm no englisher day
Speaker 2: she ain't. Are you never married me? Says missus Streeter.
Speaker 2: Vast said the captain. I allus lived board a boat.
Speaker 2: I ain't used to live in nowhere else. About two
Speaker 2: years ago there was another blow and another night. In
Speaker 2: comes here this old tub and stuck around about one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty feet from the shore. She is bigger
Speaker 2: than the rootin and I'm moved into her more commodious,
Speaker 2: said Missus Streeter. Vast said the captain. I put on
Speaker 2: a roof and target, and me and the girl lived
Speaker 2: here since then. The dudes said, I had their rob
Speaker 2: Perrian writes. They ordered me off.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't go.
Speaker 2: They asked the health department to fire me, and I
Speaker 2: fired the health department. They sent the harbor master to
Speaker 2: put me off, and that didn't work. Mister Fairbank, he
Speaker 2: said he'd burn me down, and I said, I'd shoot
Speaker 2: mister Fairbaks whiskers off if he tried it, I would do.
Speaker 2: Then mister Fairbak came in his carriage one day and
Speaker 2: he was howling mad, I says, says, I'm mister Fairbank.
Speaker 2: You look here, I am an American citizen and you
Speaker 2: can't come no British lord business over me, I says.
Speaker 2: And moreover, mister Fairbank, you can't work no Johnny bull
Speaker 2: on me, says I. Because I was born in Michigan,
Speaker 2: I says. And you're riparian rights. It's nothing to me,
Speaker 2: mister Fairbank, I says. Our rights is more riper than his,
Speaker 2: more by token that we was here first, said Missus
Speaker 2: Streeter Vast, said the captain. And I'm gonna defend my rights.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna claim all this made land as a squatter.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna carry it up to the Circuit court and
Speaker 2: to the Pellet Court and to the Supreme Court. And
Speaker 2: if the Supreme Court tries to hiss me, there's my
Speaker 2: government papers to run a boat. And if Uncle Sam
Speaker 2: don't fight them off, this ain't no land of freedom.
Speaker 2: It's unconstitutional, said a man with earrings, rising to spit
Speaker 2: in the cookstove. It ain't right, said missus Streeter. Vast,
Speaker 2: said the captain, And he rose and took down from
Speaker 2: the wall a long barreled shotgun, unpleasantly loaded with tenpenny nails,
Speaker 2: and arouse the dawn.
Speaker 3: Oh damn loaded.
Speaker 2: Nails and shot like this nails. I mean this interview fast.
Speaker 3: Oh, I gotta start saying, I says.
Speaker 2: And so the article made note of the fact that
Speaker 2: Streeter was holed up in a really nice neighborhood. So quote.
Speaker 2: From his front window, he can hear the boom of
Speaker 2: the lake and see the breakers piling in ashore. From
Speaker 2: his back stoop, he can watch the carriages of the
Speaker 2: haughty in the distance. He has only to turn over
Speaker 2: in bed to hear the chimes of Saint James's. The
Speaker 2: Newberry Library will stand withinhaling distance of his cookstove. Moreover,
Speaker 2: the made land which he lays claim to, is worth
Speaker 2: many hundreds of thousands. No wonder he doesn't want to move.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, come on, nailed it right? It's something.
Speaker 2: So after this, But our rights are riper, so after
Speaker 2: the interview, the Tribune like they popped in regularly to
Speaker 2: get choice quotes. Street quote.
Speaker 3: Fact, he's incredible.
Speaker 2: There's an article from juneo of eighteen ninety one where
Speaker 2: he laments that the Irish in the neighborhood are worse
Speaker 2: than the fat cat Swells said. He had this, he
Speaker 2: has this whole conspiracy theory that fair Bank had hired
Speaker 2: gangs of Irish to harass him. And like Streeter and
Speaker 2: his wife, they like they breathlessly tell of beating the
Speaker 2: buttons off these gang members, like blood flying everywhere, and
Speaker 2: they're all excited about it.
Speaker 3: It's in the air well.
Speaker 2: They're like the reporters like, well, what are you going
Speaker 2: to do about this? Ironically, he's going to take him
Speaker 2: to court. Quote. I've swore out warrants for Jack Dugan,
Speaker 2: Bob Dugan, McNally and Sullivan. A gang Irish should come
Speaker 2: around here trying to tear down my fence. And they
Speaker 2: tried to kill you too, Parr put in, missus Streeter,
Speaker 2: can't you be still? Shouted the Mariner And let me
Speaker 2: tell it.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I think if Popeye's grandfather was a
Speaker 5: young man, or his father was a young.
Speaker 2: Man, yes, and so on that note, let's take a break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we'll continue to follow the escapades
Speaker 2: of old Cap Streeter, Zarin Elizabeth George Streeter.
Speaker 5: Now, before we get into back into this, I said
Speaker 5: before the break that it reminded me I picked the
Speaker 5: wrong person, you know, it reminds me of a young
Speaker 5: Abraham Simpson Homer's dad.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and that as was the custom of the day.
Speaker 2: It was perfect, exactly, that is exactly it. Well, you know,
Speaker 2: if you just let me tell it, as George says,
Speaker 2: I just like, can you be still and let me
Speaker 2: tell it? Yeah, the fighting in front of the reports,
Speaker 2: so you.
Speaker 3: Can still picture them, they.
Speaker 2: Totally can totally can par You come on now? Par
Speaker 2: So George, known to his friends and supporters' Cap, known
Speaker 2: to his enemies as a pain in the rear, known
Speaker 2: to me as g W g W Streets wowing to
Speaker 2: gg Streets. Over two hundred court cases were filed involving
Speaker 2: him between eighteen eighty six and eighteen twenty two hundred,
Speaker 2: two hundred. So he had all these eviction orders, but
Speaker 2: he kept delaying enforcement through legal trickery. He'd appeal, appeal, appeal,
Speaker 2: and then he had this like populist rhetoric. People loved him.
Speaker 3: I would say, how's he affording all these lawyers pro
Speaker 3: bono stuff?
Speaker 2: You know, he had a lot of shady business on
Speaker 2: the side. In eighteen ninety three, police successfully removed him
Speaker 2: Streeterville towed the routine away. Streeter was finally convicted of
Speaker 2: assault and sentenced to a year in jail, and that
Speaker 2: like temporarily removed to Yeah, but while he was in prison,
Speaker 2: developers moved in. But like his legend grew and he
Speaker 2: began positioning himself as this populist underdog, a man of
Speaker 2: the people. I'm fighting these corrupt elites. So he gets
Speaker 2: out of jail, goes right back to the land, this
Speaker 2: time living in tents and cabins. So the boat's gone.
Speaker 2: But like you can't get rid of him. That's his land.
Speaker 2: So he claimed squatters. He made it. George Streeter, he
Speaker 2: was like doubling down at this point. He's issuing these
Speaker 2: phony legal decrees.
Speaker 3: He legrees emperor.
Speaker 2: He says he represents the District of Lake Michigan government.
Speaker 2: He issued stamps, seals, he wrote a fake constitution. He
Speaker 2: sold these like worthless land titles. And then he would
Speaker 2: like appeal to the press with bold speeches, and then
Speaker 2: his crazy behavior. He went all in and started holding
Speaker 2: mock elections for offices for his invented government. The other
Speaker 2: candidates and the guy with the earrings. So he like
Speaker 2: parade around town in military garb, like demanding recognition. He's
Speaker 2: like dark Emperor, more serious, evil Emperor. I need to
Speaker 2: do an emperor I do anyway, Streeter. So he issued
Speaker 2: quote official licenses for street vendors and peddlers to operate
Speaker 2: in Chicago streater vendors, not just in his little Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll give you that diplomatic community.
Speaker 3: You got hot dogs.
Speaker 2: None of this is valid, of course. At one point
Speaker 2: his shanty was set upon by a couple dozen cops
Speaker 2: and they weren't there on official duty. They'd been paid
Speaker 2: by Potter Palmer to strong arms Streeter and his wife
Speaker 2: out of this makeshift.
Speaker 3: For George Streeter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Streeter open fire on them. Oh snatch, and then
Speaker 2: Maria like whips out a knife and she's just like
Speaker 2: slashing out.
Speaker 3: She's close with a knife.
Speaker 2: She did night close up work.
Speaker 3: Yea.
Speaker 2: They were arrested, but then they got released because they
Speaker 2: said it was self defense. They're like these guys weren't
Speaker 2: working as cops. Oh, they were just hired goons. And
Speaker 2: who do we We don't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: Eighteen ninety nine cops descend again, this time because Streeter
Speaker 2: had taken potshots at a police carriage. The military there
Speaker 2: was this military governor William Niles had been called in.
Speaker 2: He surrounded the property with arm troops and a cannon.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, do you said, what year is this?
Speaker 2: Eighteen ninety nine?
Speaker 3: Okay, so we have the anarchist issue in Chicago. So
Speaker 3: they're dealing, ok.
Speaker 5: And that's why there's the Chicago Police are now working
Speaker 5: with the military and military governor that it was the time,
Speaker 5: so we could just use that as a.
Speaker 2: Sweep up measure, right, And they're like, but like, where
Speaker 2: do you get a cannon? They took it from a
Speaker 2: park down the road.
Speaker 3: Well that's what I'm saying, the anarchists. Everybody was grabbing.
Speaker 2: Oh no, but no, not Streeter. The military cannon from
Speaker 2: the park and this will work. Well. The cops they
Speaker 2: posted up in tugboats that had like gatling guns on them.
Speaker 3: Oh geez.
Speaker 2: And so like everyone means business and they all move in.
Speaker 2: But there's like some back and forth change. Finally, Streeter
Speaker 2: and his guys get captured, but then they got released
Speaker 2: because the cops weren't authorized to be there. Also, there
Speaker 2: wasn't yet a law against like shooting at a carriage
Speaker 2: and missing.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me, discharger, He.
Speaker 2: Wasn't like I was.
Speaker 3: It's legal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the rich folks person with a bullet like,
Speaker 2: he's like violently rich. They got more hired goons kept
Speaker 2: at it, so when a bunch of cops broke into
Speaker 2: his house while he and the missus were out, they
Speaker 2: confiscated his guns, his AMMO took it back to the station.
Speaker 2: Streeter gets home, sees this, immediately goes to the police
Speaker 2: station and walks in and takes everyone in the building hostage.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Your hostage.
Speaker 2: He wants his guns back. He had more guns he
Speaker 2: probably they're not there, called ear ring Joe. It was like,
Speaker 2: what guns do you have? He's like, I've got some.
Speaker 2: Let me talk to peg Leg Pete Stump down there
Speaker 2: with you and so yeah, so he takes everyone hostage, says,
Speaker 2: I just want my guns back. Legally, the cops didn't
Speaker 2: have a right to just go and take them, so
Speaker 2: they gave him back all his weapons and they let
Speaker 2: him just walk home. Yeah, and then like eventually, yeah,
Speaker 2: charges were filed for the incident, but like he charmed
Speaker 2: the judge and got acquitted. Anyway, in nineteen hundred, some
Speaker 2: guys showed up at Streeters saying that they were land buyers,
Speaker 2: and like, we just want to talk to George. We're
Speaker 2: just here to buy some land. And you know, Streeter's
Speaker 2: not home, like he had he had an office in
Speaker 2: town where he would it was like his real estate
Speaker 2: office where he would sell the fake land from the office.
Speaker 2: So they're like, you know, he's not home, sorry, and
Speaker 2: they're like, okay, great, and then they just burned down
Speaker 2: his house. He's not here. So Streeter was not having this.
Speaker 2: This meant war, so he rallied his misfit troops and
Speaker 2: they went to reclaim the territory. Good for the police.
Speaker 2: They show up in those strapped tugboats again as well
Speaker 2: as like all manner wagons and like literally hundreds of.
Speaker 5: Officers, like a black Mariah with a cannon on it.
Speaker 2: It was an extended standoff and so finally Streeter is
Speaker 2: convinced to surrender and once again he gets acquitted of
Speaker 2: all charges. Yeah. So nineteen oh two. That's when things
Speaker 2: went one percent for us. So one of Fairbanks guards
Speaker 2: gets shot and killed in the shantytown. A bunch of
Speaker 2: residents get implicated, but it was Streeter who gets charged
Speaker 2: with manslaughter. No one would testify, So the whole thing
Speaker 2: was built on circumstantial evidence. And it was really cloudy
Speaker 2: as to like how it happened, where the guy was found, Like,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of conflicting reports.
Speaker 3: It took to Chicago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it did matter. Streeter gets convicted and sentenced to
Speaker 2: life in prison for real. Yeah, so while he's in jail,
Speaker 2: he's in jail awaiting transfer to prison. Maria passed away.
Speaker 2: The paper said that she quote died in a barn
Speaker 2: from injuries received in a trolley car accident. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: so I guess it was like.
Speaker 3: From wound's received from a kick from a ghast.
Speaker 2: I dug around some more, and I guess she got
Speaker 2: hit by a trolley car like and suffered for like
Speaker 2: a couple months.
Speaker 3: There's a reason her life. The dodgers are called the
Speaker 3: trolley dodgers. It was an issue you had dodged that.
Speaker 2: He didn't want to go to the hospital. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: she probably thought she'd get arrested they anyway, so she
Speaker 2: just hauled up in a barn. December of nineteen oh three,
Speaker 2: Streeter made an appeal to the Grand Jury to get
Speaker 2: him out of county. He wrote, quote, I have been
Speaker 2: in jail for more than a year without a sentilla
Speaker 2: of evidence against me. My health is bad. There's been
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five citizens signed for my release,
Speaker 2: and I asked the Grand Jury to recommend it. I've
Speaker 2: been juggled all through the courts, and I've been kept
Speaker 2: here because there has been money on both sides of
Speaker 2: the case. It is a disgrace to civilize people the
Speaker 2: treatment I've received. So to many it looked like Streeter
Speaker 2: had been set up, like completely really with the man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and what do you know, people look into it. He's
Speaker 2: granted a full and unconditional pardon and released from Joliet prison. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know that erases that one percent rip to
Speaker 2: the guard.
Speaker 3: So Joliet Jake out of prison.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. He gets out and there are just huge parties,
Speaker 2: celebrations to mark his release, dances, feasts, you name it.
Speaker 2: He's a hero in a lot of people's eyes. This
Speaker 2: amazing character nineteen oh six, he hooked up with a
Speaker 2: pretty young thing named Alma Lockwood. She's thirty three years
Speaker 2: younger than he. They shacked up back in Streeterville, lived
Speaker 2: there as the territory, he claim, grew smaller and smaller,
Speaker 2: and pretty soon what was once one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: six acres was now just his house with a fence
Speaker 2: around it. Yeah, so he's still a fun character. He
Speaker 2: still had people over. He ran an underground saloon out
Speaker 2: of his house, and he broke the blue laws and
Speaker 2: sold booze on Sunday. And so they told him, you know,
Speaker 2: if you've got to get a liquor license, and even
Speaker 2: then you can't sell on Sundays. But like, he refused,
Speaker 2: So there was this court order for him to stop
Speaker 2: doing business. When the deputy showed up to issue the paperwork,
Speaker 2: Streeter stabbed him in the bum bum with a bayonet.
Speaker 3: Wow, with a bayonet?
Speaker 2: Uh huh. So Streeter gets arrested but then released. Yeah, glads, repete.
Speaker 2: But the cops wanted blood, so they showed up and
Speaker 2: they tried to re arrest him. Alma comes out with
Speaker 2: an axe.
Speaker 3: Where did he get these women?
Speaker 2: Phenomenal women? The cops were able to get it away
Speaker 2: from her, but not before she relieved. Six of them
Speaker 2: are their weapons?
Speaker 3: Of their weapons?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Reader starts unloading bird shot at him.
Speaker 3: Wow, I love these two.
Speaker 2: So Alma gets arrested for assault with intent to kill.
Speaker 2: But here's the thing. The cops that showed up for
Speaker 2: that raid never identified themselves as police. They just showed
Speaker 2: up wreck shop. And you know what that means. Acquittal. Yes,
Speaker 2: Alma gets acquitted. December eleventh, nineteen eighteen, the absolutely amazing
Speaker 2: Streeter legal run came to an end. A judge found
Speaker 2: that he had no legal claim to the land all
Speaker 2: that time, and they gave him seven days to clear out.
Speaker 2: His response was, quote, no matter where I live, the
Speaker 2: district is mine. Just wait until my boys get back
Speaker 2: from France. Well apparently, yeah, his sons were if he
Speaker 2: had sons fighting World War One, plus like you know,
Speaker 2: some of the residents exactly to be they were legit.
Speaker 2: Though he's forcibly removed from his house. All the belongings
Speaker 2: put into a wagon and then they burned the house down.
Speaker 2: He and his wife lived in the wagon for a
Speaker 2: little while. They became like a local attraction. People would
Speaker 2: come and hang out with him. Yes, so he stuck
Speaker 2: around the neighborhood local associations. They threw balls with him
Speaker 2: as the main attraction. Oh no, they like they come
Speaker 2: out and like, yeah he would. They'd have a big
Speaker 2: dinner and a dance and fancy dress or what you know,
Speaker 2: costumes but like people, and it would just raise funds
Speaker 2: for him and whomever. Else. He would file new lawsuits
Speaker 2: against the city and like various wealthy landowners every now
Speaker 2: and then, and then they all get struck down. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He bought a houseboat called the Vamoose and he lived
Speaker 2: on that and he got a job selling hot dogs
Speaker 2: at Navy Peer.
Speaker 3: Wow, I knew it come into dogs. He cannot have
Speaker 3: a Chicago story without dogs being sold.
Speaker 2: Chicago story to me, and he was just like this
Speaker 2: character about town.
Speaker 3: This is great.
Speaker 2: One day, while he was chopping wood, a big artawood
Speaker 2: flew up and hit him in the eye. It got
Speaker 2: infected and then he got pneumonia. And on January twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one, at the age of eighty four years old,
Speaker 2: he went to the Great Beyond.
Speaker 3: He got felled by a tree he was chopping there. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: it seems about right.
Speaker 2: His funeral was huge, hundreds of people, including the Mayor's.
Speaker 3: Show say, and the Bishop of Chicago, the archbishop.
Speaker 2: Archbishop, so the mayor shows up. This is from the
Speaker 2: Chicago Tribunes reporting on it.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: Curious citizens gathered about the open grave yesterday afternoon to
Speaker 2: witness the ancient mariner's burial. Lured were they by an
Speaker 2: adventurous iliad, which, for more than a generation has made
Speaker 2: the district a place of buccaneeric notoriety. An iliad in
Speaker 2: which the cap'n was hector defending his holdings from the
Speaker 2: depredations of Gold Coast agamemnons. He'd rather fight than eat,
Speaker 2: affirmed one citizen, spitting emphatically upon the fresh turned gravel.
Speaker 2: Dirty shame he couldn't be buried in Streeterville, commented another.
Speaker 2: I'll bet a small boy speaking there's lots of money
Speaker 2: hidden away in the sands down there. I'll bet Up
Speaker 2: the driveway came a grayhearse, followed by numerous machines. The
Speaker 2: grays mechanics alighted, moss reader, veiled but tearless, peered curiously
Speaker 2: into the rectangular hole. The handsome coffin was placed upon
Speaker 2: its braces. The prayer began with l trains grumbling and
Speaker 2: ray clouds hovering overhead. We used to be a proper country,
Speaker 2: with proper journalists and readers who wanted more than like
Speaker 2: just a personal reader. This is just a stringer's piece too.
Speaker 2: There's no byline.
Speaker 3: Because someone just commenting on the deck.
Speaker 2: It's just the beautiful stuff.
Speaker 3: And the thing is society.
Speaker 2: We were a literate society because we were producing this.
Speaker 2: Journalists were able to produce this, and there was an
Speaker 2: audience for it.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Streeter, Yeah, I mean it was a lot
Speaker 2: of life says, Yeah, he's gone, but the ven moose
Speaker 2: remains gone. He's gone, leg It was a legit funeral.
Speaker 2: He claimed the land in which he was buried. But
Speaker 2: there's the vamoose right. Alma lived there, at one point,
Speaker 2: suing the city for damages, asking them to repair it
Speaker 2: after another boat moored next to it and banged it up.
Speaker 2: She took over his hot dog business and his fake
Speaker 2: land claimed business too. At one point she incorporated the
Speaker 2: Streeterville Guarantee Company in Arizona with a one billion dollar valuation. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then she was going to use that to sue
Speaker 2: She got busted for moonshining on the vamoose during Prohibition,
Speaker 2: like they confiscated a still, but then she was like
Speaker 2: selling bootleg liquor. The Vamoose continued to fall into disrepair,
Speaker 2: mos Streeter would get arrested every now and then for
Speaker 2: defying orders to repair it. Streeter's kids would every now
Speaker 2: and then contest the property ownership in the district, filing
Speaker 2: suit to get claim to the land, always dismissed. Sometimes
Speaker 2: the kids were legitimate, other times it'd be folks claiming
Speaker 2: to be the love child of like Streeter and some
Speaker 2: shanty boiller. Oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 3: And do you think that they were like legitimately, No,
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: Think they were fair. Year by year through the Chicago papers,
Speaker 2: and it was like so thick with these claims and
Speaker 2: these articles.
Speaker 3: There's just so many of us, another Chicago tradition.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In nineteen twenty eight, the city finally condemned the vemous
Speaker 2: twenty eight gave it a Viking funeral, although they actually
Speaker 2: hoisted it out of the water, let it dry, and
Speaker 2: then set on fire, pour concrete on top, tired it
Speaker 2: into the sun. Alma moved into a room on Howe
Speaker 2: Avenue and sold aprons to make ends meat, and she
Speaker 2: passed away in nineteen thirty six at the age of
Speaker 2: sixty six. The last of the air lawsuits was finally
Speaker 2: dismissed in nineteen forty. Nineteen forty, he run, yeah, and
Speaker 2: so here we are today. The land was you know that,
Speaker 2: he claimed to Streeterville is one of Chicago's wealthiest and
Speaker 2: most developed neighborhoods, home to Navy peer like I said,
Speaker 2: also John Hancock Center, Northwestern University's medical campus. There's a
Speaker 2: true Chicago folk hero for you, Saren. What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: That was a really fun like rebuilding of Chicago's story
Speaker 3: And I hadn't even heard that one, you know, So
Speaker 3: it was a really fun talking about Chicago in a
Speaker 3: way I had never heard about before. So thank you, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: What was your.
Speaker 2: Take away?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: I went so deep into the Chicago papers at the time,
Speaker 2: and it's like there were so many other little side details,
Speaker 2: some too hideous to talk about.
Speaker 3: Were you surprised how often they used to term jag
Speaker 3: Off in the.
Speaker 2: Newspaper after post post George in like almost later years,
Speaker 2: things got crazy really that I can't I don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about it. Yeah, I'm sure, but the details
Speaker 2: were just fascinating and you could go down so many
Speaker 2: side rabbit holes. But honestly, what really struck me was
Speaker 2: the level of journalism.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was beautiful letting him just.
Speaker 2: Kind of run for it in the and the interviews
Speaker 2: and getting choice quotes, but it was it was, It
Speaker 2: was a pleasure going through all the newspapers on that
Speaker 2: what I do need.
Speaker 3: I miss being illiterate society.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, seriously, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean like I know that it's it's wild and
Speaker 3: whatever things changes, it's going to happen. But like for
Speaker 3: all the writers who are like.
Speaker 5: People are going to be reading my books for Milan,
Speaker 5: I'm like, not even one hundred years.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, because it's all headlines and people don't
Speaker 2: even read a whole headline and then they comment on
Speaker 2: things without having read it, just to whatever. Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 3: Shame that because also thinking, clear thinking comes along with
Speaker 3: that kind of good.
Speaker 2: Right, completely completely. But in the art of the language, yeah,
Speaker 2: the poetry of it, play around with it. I need
Speaker 2: to talk back, David.
Speaker 3: I went.
Speaker 4: Hello to all the fine folks at Ridiculous Crime. I
Speaker 4: was just listening to your mascot episode, and I had
Speaker 4: to laugh to myself because my partner is and was
Speaker 4: a mascot from Anything, and they tell me all the
Speaker 4: time about all the like super mean and irritating and
Speaker 4: just violent kids they deal with. So it was kind
Speaker 4: of funny and a little bit cathartic to hear about
Speaker 4: Gritty kind of like smacking them back a little bit.
Speaker 4: That's so funny. Keep it up, y'all.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the thing. I've seen kids like go nuts
Speaker 2: in there. They're horrible rible.
Speaker 3: I with Gritty Man, Yeah, check a kid.
Speaker 2: That's right. That's all for today. You can find us
Speaker 2: online at Ridiculous Crime dot com.
Speaker 3: Do you know what?
Speaker 2: That's just one the Beauty of Dance Award, Yes, from
Speaker 2: Walmart dot com.
Speaker 3: We were so excited when we got nominated. I didn't
Speaker 3: think it was a chance.
Speaker 2: The Walmart dot Com Awards are really prestigious, very much.
Speaker 3: So it was us in Conan O'Brien out there, and
Speaker 3: I was like, really excited to be in such a
Speaker 3: illustrious company.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be really good ceremony.
Speaker 3: Who knew he couldog dance like that?
Speaker 2: Who tears it up? Pizza Lionza. We're also on Blue
Speaker 2: Sky and Instagram. You can find us on YouTube, Ridiculous Crime, Poda,
Speaker 2: Fabulous Animation, Yeah Love. Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot
Speaker 2: com and leave us a talk back on the iHeart app.
Speaker 2: Please reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
Speaker 2: and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by the Right Honorable
Speaker 2: Duke of the District of Lake Michigan Dave Cousten, starring
Speaker 2: Annals Rutger as Judith. Research is by The Unthinkable Marissa Brown.
Speaker 2: The theme song is by Shantytown Roustabouts Thomas Lee and Travis.
Speaker 2: The host wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest
Speaker 2: hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers
Speaker 2: are Houseboat Repairman Ben Bollen and Navy Peer Hot Dog
Speaker 2: Empresario Noel. We're All Redous Crime, Say it one More
Speaker 2: Timequeous Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Four More Podcasts.
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.