NASCAR’s not the first to use Chicago as a sports arena, venue
As the NASCAR drivers take to Chicago’s streets, we remember other times this city has opened its roadways to provide a venue for national and local sports events.
And it’s not unusual to have the city’s streets used for an arena.
It’s also been a venue for competition since the 1800s, when city streets were closed for high-wheel bicycle races. In 1901, a year after the first auto race was held in the United States, organizers cordoned off a 40-mile path from Chicago to Joliet. Beaches are regularly closed for volleyball tournaments, public pools for swim events and sections of Lake Michigan for regattas.
So it’s not unusual for the city to close roadways and parks for an event like the NASCAR Cup Series Street Race this weekend.
During the past 75 years, Sun-Times photographers and reporters have covered sports that take up city streets and waterways. Here are a few.
Pan American Games
The 1959 Pan American Games is the closest that Chicago has ever come to hosting the Olympics. At least 20 sections of the city and suburbs shut down streets over two weeks in the middle of the summer. Rowing was in the Cal-Sag Channel, yachting in Jackson Park Outer Harbor, tennis at the Lincoln Park Waveband Courts and baseball at Wrigley Field.
Chicago Marathon
Since the early 1900s, the city has shut down roads for marathons. An estimated 500,000 people lined the route from Ravinia Park in Highland Park to downtown Chicago to watch the 1905 marathon (only 25 miles in those days). The current Chicago Marathon was started in 1977 by Mayor Michael Bilandic, a runner.
Other sports, demonstrations
Richard Cahan and Michael Williams are journalists and owners of CityFiles Press, a media company that has published three books about the Chicago Sun-Times photo collection, including “Chicago Exposed: Defining Moments from the Chicago Sun-Times Photo Archives.”
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