Most Chicagoans know some of the big events that go on in the city every year. One of those events is the annual Auto Show. The show has actually been going on since 1901. In that year, the first ever show was held in the Chicago Coliseum, which had been rebuilt from the exterior of a Civil War Prison that had been moved to the city for the 1893 World's Fair. Over the years, the Coliseum got to be more and more cramped, until it got to the point where some of the shows exhibits had to be shown in another hall.
As a result of this, the show was moved to the newly constructed International Amphitheatre in time for the 1935 show. Another staple of the show during this period of time was the annual revue. Twice a day, they would have dancers out there giving a show. Everything was going great, but then came the onset of World War II. After the 1941 show(which was actually held at the end of 1940), the Auto Show was suspended for the duration of the War, and in fact all the way through to 1950. The show made a triumphant return in 1950, and was actually the first auto show in the country after the war. Also at the 1950 show, plans were unveiled for the construction of the Congress superhighway, otherwise known as I-290(or for those of us who know the lingo, the Eisenhower Expressway).
The show would spend the next 10 years at the International Amphitheatre, until spacial constraints once again became an issue. In a display of good timing, the city had just unveiled it's new lakefront convention center in November of 1960. As a consequence, the Auto Show was once again moved to the newly opened McCormick Place(replete with 300,000 square feet of starting with the 1961 edition. One of these firsts came in 1965, when Nissan sold its first car in Chicago right there at the Auto Show. Unfortunately, the McCormick Place was destroyed by a calamitous fire in 1967, on the eve of that year's show. Since the show could not be held in a charred ruin, the show made a hurried return to the International Amphitheatre, where it would remain through 1970. The next year, the show returned to the newly rebuilt McCormick Place, where it remains to this day.
Moving forward into the 80s, the show pretty much remained the same, except for that one time in 1987 when Walter Payton and Michael Jordan dropped in to say hi. This past year, the show commemorated yet another outing in the city, and it also showed that everything is new again by having a revue. Not the same idea from before, but this time is was a preview performance for I Love Lucy the musical. All of this just goes to show that the Auto Show has had a rich legacy over the past 100+ years, and I can't wait to see what it has next.
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