Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on July 1, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Sports flashback: July 2, 1910
1910: White Sox Park (later named Comiskey Park) opened.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 103 degrees (1956)
- Low temperature: 46 degrees (1982)
- Precipitation: 1.56 inches (1901)
- Snowfall: Trace (1920)
1911: Naval Station Great Lakes — the U.S. Navy’s largest training base and home of its only boot camp — opened near North Chicago on 172 acres. Congress decided to establish the station in 1904, when the need for an inland naval school that could accept recruits from the central and southwest U.S. was identified.
Two days later, its first recruit arrived, Joseph Gregg, of Terre Haute, Indiana. When Gregg graduated with the first class of 300 sailors, President William Howard Taft was there.
1913: Aviator Logan A. “Jack” Vilas became the first person to cross Lake Michigan by air. With William Bastar, manager of the Whitcomb Hotel in Benton Harbor, Michigan, as his passenger, Vilas left St. Joseph, Michigan, in his Curtiss flying boat, which cruised at an altitude of 4,000 feet in the air and then arrived in Grant Park one hour and 34 minutes later.
“If it hadn’t been for some dangerous air currents about half way over, then I would have made it in an hour or less,” the Chicago native told the crowd after landing.
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1934: When Brookfield Zoo opened to the public on this day, Cookie was there to greet the almost 60,000 visitors. And though the pink cockatoo was never “top banana” at the zoo, he outlived every other animal that was on the grounds that day.
1943: The first night game was played at Wrigley Field. It was a benefit all-star contest featuring women from the All-American Girls Professional Ball League.
Comiskey Park hosted the first night major league baseball game in the city four years earlier.
1969: Republican Gov. Richard Ogilvie was forced to ally with Mayor Richard J. Daley to get the votes needed to establish the state’s first income tax. The Illinois House passed a bill for a flat-rate income tax of 2.5% on individuals and 4% on corporations.
Richard Ogilvie transformed Illinois. Rauner and Pritzker could learn from his legacy.
In 1970, Illinois voters approved a new state constitution mandating that income tax be a flat rate. Article IX, Section 3: “A tax on or measured by income shall be at a non-graduated rate.”
1970: Illinois’ state flag — a white field carrying the word Illinois and the emblem portion of the state seal — became official.
In March 2025, the people of Illinois voted to keep the state flag as it is.
‘It almost sounded like a hurricane’: Derecho weather events in the Chicago area since 1965
2012: During the hot, drought-plagued summer, a late-morning storm destroyed power lines, damaged roofs and caused delays in the air and on the rails. High winds, first noted in the DeKalb area, sped across western and southern portions of the Chicago metro area with reported wind speeds of 70-90 mph, according to former WGN-TV chief meteorologist Tom Skilling.
Though no serious injuries were reported, about 60 novice kayakers — all wearing life jackets — had to be rescued from the Chicago River near Chicago Avenue due to choppy waters and high winds.
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