Streeterville is named after one of the most colorful characters in Chicago history, George Wellington Streeter. Streeter led a checkered career with stints as a gold prospector, bootlegger and circus ringmaster, but his enduring fame is based on his exploits as the rowdy, hard-charging, hard-drinking Captain of a Lake Michigan steamer called the Reutan. One day in 1886, the Reutan ran aground on a sand bar about 150 yards off the lakefront, and Streeter, perhaps under the influence of strong drink, was unable to refloat it. Seizing upon this disaster and transforming it into an opportunity, he built a breakwater around the Reutan, made it his home, and began hauling in tons of sand, eventually creating 180 acres of dry land directly connected with the shoreline. To prevent any unwanted interference from city authorities, Streeter declared that his enclave was not part of Chicago, but was, in fact, a new entity he called the “District of Lake Michigan”. He invited friends and acquaintances to join him there, and soon Streeter’s “District” was a bustling tent city and shantytown occupied by gamblers, thieves, pimps, prostitutes and other denizens of the lower levels of society.

The “District of Lake Michigan” was practically at the front doors of a number of Gold Coast mansions, among them palatial residences belonging to millionaire hotelier Potter Palmer and banker N. K. Fairbank. Fairbank was particularly incensed by what Streeter had done and once marched over to Streeter’s home aboard the Reutan, pounded on the door, announced that his “riparian rights” were being violated, and demanded that Streeter vacate the “District” forthwith. An unimpressed Streeter reached behind the door, picked up his shotgun, and suggested that Fairbank should be the one to depart, which he did.

Fairbank and other prominent Chicagoans put pressure on city officials to do something about Streeter and his “District”, leading to a sporadic series of armed encounters. Every time the police tried to evict Streeter, however, he and his neighbors fought back with rifles, shotguns, and even pails of boiling water. Each incident enhanced Streeter’s reputation as a folk hero, and more and more people flocked to his enclave. In 1897 Streeter dealt a severe blow to the legal efforts to evict him. He found an 1821 map of Chicago that clearly showed the city boundary to be west of Streeter’s “District”. He celebrated this victory by renaming his empire the “Free District of Lake Michigan” and declaring himself Governor. City officials acknowledged defeat and retreated, but some Gold Coast millionaires refused to give up the fight. They hired a small army of mercenaries and tried to evict Streeter by force. He fought back by organizing a ragtag neighborhood militia armed with pistols, rifles, shotguns, and even a cannon left over from the Civil War. The “Battle of Streeterville” ended in a draw, but it was really a victory for Streeter, who continued to preside over his wide-open “District” for another decade.

Despite his comfortable legal position, the plotting against Streeter continued and eventually he was arrested for the murder of a man who had been hired to kill him. Streeter was convicted and sentenced to life in prison but after only nine months behind bars, he received a full pardon from Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld and was allowed to return to his beloved “District”. Finally, in 1918, a full thirty years after the Reutan had run aground on a Lake Michigan sandbar, the authorities forced Streeter to give up the “District”, and surrender all claims to the property, which became part of the City of Chicago. Streeter died three years later at the age of 84. Among the mourners at his funeral was the Mayor of the City of Chicago, William Hale Thompson.

While Streeter’s motives and methods might have been suspect, his brashness, courage and entrepreneurial independence typify the spirit that made Chicago the “City of the Century”. And, it is fitting that our neighborhood continues to bear the name of one of our town’s most colorful and heroic figures: George Wellington Streeter.