Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Dec. 25, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Chicago’s Christmas weather: The warmest and coldest since 1872
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 64 degrees (1982)
- Low temperature: Minus 17 degrees (1983)
- Precipitation: 0.5 inches (1950)
- Snowfall: 5.1 inches (1950)
1856: Old St. Patrick’s Church at 123 S. Desplaines St. in Chicago — the oldest public building in the city — was dedicated.
1865: Chicago’s Union Stock Yards received its first shipment of animals, and officially opened.
The yards, which covered a half square mile west of Halsted Street between Pershing Road and 47th Street, were soon filled “with so many cattle as no-one had ever dreamed existed in the world,” noted one writer. “Red, black, white and yellow cattle. Great bellowing bulls and little calves not an hour born. Meek-eyed milch cows and fierce, long-horned Texas steers.”
A massive fire, which took out nearly 90% of the stockyards, erupted at the site in 1934. Fifty firefighters were injured in the blaze and hundreds of cattle were killed.
But the stockyards had moments of glory, too. Research laboratories funded by the packers turned animal byproducts into everything from medicine to cosmetics. From 1900, there was a yearly International Livestock Exposition as well as a 4-H Club show. In 1952, the Republicans and Democrats held their presidential nominating conventions at the International Amphitheatre, an exposition center located in the stockyards complex.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: The International Livestock Exposition
Called “Union” for the seven separate stockyards that contributed to build it, the stockyards opened on more than 300 acres of swamp land purchased from two-time Chicago Mayor “Long” John Wentworth. More than 18.6 million head of cattle, hogs and sheep were marketed at its peak in 1924.
The Union Stock Yards closed on the city’s South Side in 1971.
All that remains of the stockyards is its gate, which includes a sculpted version of a prize-winning steer.
2005: The Chicago Bears’ 24-17 victory over the Green Bay Packers clinched the team’s first division title since 2001, guaranteeing a first-round bye and a home playoff game. The win also secured a season sweep of the Packers for the first time in 14 years and ended Green Bay’s three-year stranglehold on the division title.
Making his first start since Sept. 26, 2004, Bears quarterback Rex Grossman finished 11-for-23 for 166 yards and one touchdown with one interception.
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