Copyright Chicago Tribune
Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Oct. 22, according to the Tribune’s archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) High temperature: 87 degrees (1953) Low temperature: 22 degrees (1982) Precipitation: 2.81 inches (1983) Snowfall: Trace (2013) 1887: Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln, was among 100,000 people who attended the unveiling of a 12-foot bronze statue of the 16th president in Lincoln Park that is known as Abraham Lincoln: The Man. According to the Chicago Park District, it is one of two monuments to Lincoln in Chicago created by Irish-born sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The other — Abraham Lincoln, Head of State — is in Grant Park. 1963: Almost half of all Chicago Public Schools students — roughly 200,000 — boycotted during a “Freedom Day” protest. The boycott stemmed in part from anger over Chicago Public Schools’ policies that included the use of portable classrooms that came to be known as Willis wagons — after district Superintendent Benjamin Willis — to relieve overcrowding at schools in largely Black neighborhoods. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Bernie Sanders, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. protest against ‘Willis wagons’ in schools Willis resigned his position on Oct. 4, 1963, citing the school board’s encroachment on his authority. A Superior Court judge had ordered him to put into effect a pupil transfer directive adopted by the school board. That order was rescinded and Willis remained superintendent until 1966. 1965: U.S. Army Pvt. Milton Lee Olive III was killed in Vietnam after throwing his body on a hand grenade to save the lives of four military companions — two Black and two white. The soft-spoken South Side teen, whose nickname was “Skipper,” posthumously became the first Black officer who served in the Vietnam War to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. A South Side GI’s incredible sacrifice in a war that ended chaotically 50 years ago Forever 18, Olive is buried in an all-Black cemetery behind a small church in a Mississippi farming town. Olive Park, on the lakefront at the site of the city’s water filtration plant and adjacent to Navy Pier, is named in his honor. 1974: Thieves entered a vault on the premises of the Armed Express Co. (a division of Purolator Security), 127 W. Huron St., Chicago, and stole an estimated $3.8 million and another $700,000 in receipts from Hawthorne racetrack in Stickney, which had just closed its season. At the time, it was the biggest theft in U.S. history. Ralph Marrera of Berwyn — a guard who was on duty at the time of the robbery and flunked a lie detector test — was charged days later in a federal complaint with bank burglary, bank larceny and illegal use of explosive devices. Five others were also charged. Marrera was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1983. He served six years and was paroled in 1989. Of the record heist, more than $1.2 million was never recovered, according to the FBI. 1980: A tavern owner before he entered public life, 26th Ward Ald. Stanley Zydlo pleaded guilty in 1980 to paying a $1,000 bribe to have the test results altered for a Fire Department physical entrance exam taken by two relatives. Zydlo was elected without opposition in 1963 and retired in 1978 because of failing health. He was sentenced to six months in a prison work-release program and died in 1989. The Dishonor Roll: Chicago officials Want more vintage Chicago? Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.
