Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Feb. 1, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
(Business) front page flashback: Feb. 1, 2006
2006: United Airlines emerged from bankruptcy for the first time in more than three years.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 56 degrees (1968)
- Low temperature: Minus 14 degrees (1985)
- Precipitation: 0.87 inches (2015)
- Snowfall: 16.2 inches (2015)
1900: The Everleigh sisters opened their carriage trade brothel, the opulent Everleigh Club, 2131 S. Dearborn St. It was shut down in 1911 by Mayor Carter Harrison. That’s when Ada and Minna Everleigh moved to New York.
1981: Martina Navratilova took two checks, one for $35,000 and another for $6,000, as well as two fur jackets out of Chicago as her prizes for winning the singles and doubles titles in the Avon tournament at the International Amphitheatre.
Navratilova also left something in Chicago that night — advice for the Chicago Bears, who were negotiating with Walter Payton at the time.
“Give Walter Payton whatever he wants,” said Navratilova, a Dallas Cowboys fan. “Give him $1 million a year. Payton is the franchise.”
1982: In the first of its kind in the U.S., Morton Grove began enforcement of a controversial ordinance banning the possession of handguns. Residents turned in five guns to police on the first day. The ordinance also banned possession of automatic weapons, overriding a newly effective state law that allowed it.
The measure triggered a storm of publicity and a nationwide debate over the merits of using local ordinances to control gun ownership, but was upheld in 1984 by the Illinois Supreme Court. The ordinance was repealed in July 2008.
1995: Two thumbs up. Mayor Richard M. Daley dedicated Erie Street between Fairbanks and McClurg courts to film critics Gene Siskel, of the Chicago Tribune, and Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times.
The honorarily named Siskel & Ebert Way commemorates the WBBM-TV studios where they taped their show.
2014: Charles “Peanut” Tillman announced as NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year.
2018: Won Kow — then Chinatown’s oldest restaurant — closed.
Won Kow was built in 1928 by a restaurateur named Moy, according to Tribune archives. The restaurant was frequented by both people from the neighborhood, as well as Jewish families from the North and South sides, It served Chinese-American favorites such as orange chicken, chow mein, chop suey, dim sum and fresh seafood.
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