Some Sidelights
Earlier this year I wrote a Hyde Park Story about Morgan Shoal in the Hyde Park Herald The people who love the shoal are fighting to save it. Here are some sidelights that didn’t make it into the article.
One of my favorite discoveries was the complex network of fossil coral reefs that made Hyde Park infamous among sailors in the 19th century when the Chicago River was a major port. Luckily, ships ran aground but didn’t sink because they were sitting on rock. As a result, there was relatively little loss of life, though there were some desperate rescues of sailors clinging to the rigging in snowstorms. Before photos were used in newspapers there were wonderful sketch artists. Here’s one of the wreck of the Peck on the eastern edge of Morgan Shoal.
This website provides a look at the shoal system and how extensive it is. This is a navigation map from https://www.usharbors.com/harbor/illinois/chicago-il/map/.
I’ve marked Morgan Shoal with a black box. It has the cute little shipwreck drawing for the Silver Spray. I couldn’t confirm what the red things are. Some may be buoys. The red box has been generally called the Hyde Park shoals and the blue box was a particularly deadly spot for ships carrying iron ore and coal down to the steel mills. I suspect the fact there was that hunk of rock in the lake was one reason that Mayor Richard J. Daley threatened to build an airport straight east of the Point. The Point would have become a causeway. What a nightmare that would have been.
For a while the lakefront bristled with piers. Squatters lived on the sand. One of them, George “Old Dad” Parkinson, lived in the shack on the end of the pier at 55th Street, which met the water basically where 55th Street meets South Shore Drive now. Here’s the grainy photo of the pier. It was quite a large structure. I haven’t found out yet who built it. I do know a family of ferrets lived under it.
55th Street Pier that George “old Dad” Parkinson lived on in 1901, as spelled out in the Chicago Tribune story about a 200 pound sturgeon.
It was probably torn out when they built the 5490 Building. In a sense, the Point recreates the experience of jutting out into the water.
The start of landfill for the Promontory Point at 55th Street. from The Encyclopedia of Chicago.
The Point was supposed to be the first step in a chain of islands that would connect Jackson Park to Northerly Island in Grant Park with the leisurely promenade of Lake Shore Drive running along beside them. The Shoreland Hotel was looking forward to this recreation playland.
Postcare of the Shoreland Hotel, a proto version of the Point and the start of the chain of barrier islands. from Chicago History in Postcards
But those islands would have wiped out Morgan Shoal. If you want to hear more about why Morgan Shoal and the beach next to it are beloved, check out the talk I, Phil Willink (biologist), and Bill Swislow (author of Lakefront Anonymous: Chicago’s Unknown Art Gallery) gave for the Friends of the Parks.
Patricia L. Morse 