History on our streets

Today, I took my daughter to view an apartment. She's almost done with her graduate degree in Occupational Therapy from the University of Illinois Chicago campus, and is readying to do her Fieldwork.

Her 6 months of fieldwork, brings her further north in the city. A little closer to her parents (a happy circumstance for her mother and I)... so we were helping her locate an apartment in Andersonville. One of the apartments we looked at was directly across the street from the old Essanay studios. This small, nondescript building was once known as the FIRST of the Hollywood studios (located in Chicago!).

I had forgotten about the Essanay studios, and wasn't even sure where they were located. But here was the building, larger than life (yet small in size)... Founded in 1907 by George Spoor and Broncho Billy Anderson.... get it?... Spoor and Anderson... S & A... "Essanay"... a cute play on words. It was best known as the studios that filmed comedies for Charlie Chaplin (that's right... THE Charlie Chaplin) in 1915...

Essanay also filmed such luminaries as Ben Turpin, Wallace Beery, Gloria Swanson, and Tom Mix (for those of you too young to know these stars of silent movies and some talkies... Tom Mix was the John Wayne of his era). They also furthered the career of Broncho Bill Anderson in the "Broncho Billy" westerns (yes, one of the owners of the studio).

Even though Essanay had managed to lure Chaplin away from Mack Sennet's studios, he only stayed a short year, and then left for more control. Chaplin was Essanay's biggest earner. Eventually, Chicago's fickle weather, caused the studio to move out to California, leaving their building behind, for me to discover today. It is now part of a local college, and still has the Charlie Chaplin auditorium.

A treasure, hidden away in the 1300 block of Argyle in Chicago's Andersonville (Uptown) neighborhood. Cool.