IT’S FLASHBACK SQUARED: 98 years ago this weekend, the social elite of the North Shore performed a historical pageant that took guests back to the days of MARQUETTE and FT. DEARBORN, BLACKHAWK and PONTIAC and LINCOLN. Thousands attended the three-night torch-lit spectacle on the Northwestern campus, which raised $10,000 for the university’s settlement house in Chicago as it dramatized scenes from early Illinois history. But just as our frontier forebears had to cope with the unexpected, so did the thespians. A horse panicked during the Ft. Dearborn massacre, adding some realism to the tableau as actors screamed and ran for cover. And a bear cub brought in to add more realism got cranky in a very authentic way until it was learned that the bear had not been fed. Ah, wilderness.
19th Century nickname for Illinoisans (it’s a long story): SUCKERS.
Drama company that Thomas Wood Stevens, who scripted the Evanston Pageant, went on to direct for six years: THE GOODMAN THEATRE.
Number of students who received bachelor’s degrees at the first Northwestern commencement in 1859: 4.
Sources: Tribune archives, Illinois State Museum, “A History of Illinois” by Thomas Ford, Northwestern University.
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“It is reported that one of the horses was afflicted with nervous chills and refused to take his cue.”
–FROM THE TRIBUNE’S OCT. 8 ACCOUNT OF THE EVANSTON PAGEANT
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nwatkins@tribune.com
