Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Oct. 13, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 88 degrees (1975)
- Low temperature: 25 degrees (1988)
- Precipitation: 3.79 inches (2001)
- Snowfall: Trace (1986)
Arlington International Racecourse: History of one of the ‘world’s most beautiful racetracks’
1927: Arlington Park opened for its first season of business — though still under construction. More than 20,000 fans braved the cold weather to celebrate the event in high style. Jockey Joe Bollero guided horse Luxembourg to victory in the race track’s first-ever race. The facility closed in 2021 and the site was bought by the Chicago Bears in 2023.
1983: David Meilahn, a suburban Chicago insurance agent, made the first commercial cellular call in the United States in a parking lot at Soldier Field.
1992: Shortly after the 9 a.m. school bell, 7-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot in the head by a sniper while walking with his mother from his Cabrini-Green high-rise to the Jenner Academy of the Arts. Half an hour later, he was pronounced dead at Children’s Memorial Hospital.
Cabrini-Green timeline: From ‘war workers’ to ‘Good Times,’ Jane Byrne and demolition
Later that day, police arrested reputed street gang leader Anthony Garrett in connection with Dantrell’s murder.
1994: Five-year-old Eric Morse was dropped from the 14th floor of the Ida B. Wells public housing complex by Jesse Rankins, 10, and Tykeece Johnson, 11, for refusing to steal candy from a store. The murder plot was hatched by the boys as they walked home from school earlier that day, the Tribune reported at the time.
Morse’s death — he was the 53rd child under the age of 14 to be killed in Chicago that year — came to be a symbol of all that had gone wrong in public housing in Chicago.
Illinois reacted swiftly to the boys’ arrest for Morse’s murder, enacting a new law that lowered the age to 10 from 13 at which offenders could be sentenced to prison.
1998: Northwestern University chemistry professor John Pople won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He developed the GAUSSIAN computer program in 1970, and shared the prize with Walter Kohn for using mathematics to unscramble the complexities of how atoms glom onto one another to form molecules.
2015: Kyle Schwarber hit a home run — with an exit velocity of 112.5 mph and distance of 419 feet — atop Wrigley Field’s right field video board in the Chicago Cubs’ win over the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4 of the National League Division Series to advance to the National League Championship Series. The ball was encased in a clear box and remained in that position for the rest of the season.
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