Streeterville: From Squatter Community to Chicago's Priciest Real Estate

by Suzanne Hanney

by Suzanne HanneyBefore the opening of the Michigan Avenue Bridge, warehouses filled the area to the east, close to where the Chicago River emptied into Lake Michigan, an area known as “The Sands.”

During a storm in 1886, “Capt.” George Wellington Streeter (1837-1921) grounded his ship, The Reutan, on the Sands, at about what is now Chicago Avenue and Fairbanks, and set off a 30-year battle over what would become some of the city’s most valuable lakefront property. The longer Wellington was unable to move The Reutan, the more sediment filled in around the ship, until it rested on the mainland. Streeter filed a claim for the land as an annexation, based on an 1821 survey that showed the Lake Michigan shoreline to be farther west, according to Emmett Dedmon in “Fabulous Chicago.” He also used squatter’s rights and a document allegedly signed by President Grover Cleveland, according to a 1988 Chicago Tribune story.

Streeter argued he was creating more land, and that he had federal, rather than Illinois, jurisdiction. “Streeter’s brashness endeared him to local newspapers, which delighted in reporting on his ‘Deestric of Lake Michigan,’” according to the online Encyclopedia of Chicago. He also encouraged builders to dump their rubble into his landfill and he sold parcels to gullible buyers.

In 1899, after litigation in which he challenged powerful Chicagoans such as Potter Palmer and N.K. Fairbank, he was captured by police, but escaped when his wife, Maria, threw a kettle of boiling water at them. Another time he enlisted an army of hoboes and squatters armed with rocks, clubs and just a few rifles. He served time in the Joliet penitentiary after killing a night watchman for allegedly trespassing but returned afterward to his lakefront shanty.

Only after Streeter began a brisk business in beer and whiskey – in defiance of Chicago Sunday closing laws – did Mayor William “Big Bill” Thompson go after him in 1918. Streeter broke down a fence police erected to keep him out, after which they burned down his shack. He died of pneumonia a few years later at age 84. In 1924, Maria also having died, his second wife Elma filed a claim for $1 billion against 1,500 lakefront property owners. She died in 1936 and the last claim by Streeter heirs was dismissed in federal court in 1940.

Nevertheless, the lakefront neighborhood east of Michigan Avenue between the Chicago River and Oak Street is known as Streeterville.

Captain and Ma Streeter

Library of Congress