Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Nov. 6, 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: 75 degrees (1975)
- Low temperature: 19 degrees (1991)
- Precipitation: 0.99 inches (1951)
- Snowfall: 8 inches (1951)

1860: Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States.

1923: Mary Bartelme was elected Circuit Court judge, becoming Chicago’s first female judge and the first woman judge in Illinois.
“It is the first time Illinois has elected a woman to a court of such high jurisdiction,” the Tribune reported. “Last night as the returns came in they revived recollections of the historic night years ago when Mrs. Catharine Waugh McCulloch first cracked the ice by winning election as justice of the peace in Evanston.”
After retiring from the bench in 1933, Bartelme, who never married, moved to Carmel, California, where she died in 1954. “One of her last wishes,” according to the Tribune, “was that instead of flowers, contributions be sent to the Mary Bartelme club, which she founded in 1914 to provide homes for dependent girls.”
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Tradition of acceptance speeches at political conventions began in Chicago
1956: Former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson II was defeated — again — by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the race for president.

2012: Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth defeated freshman Republican Rep. Joe Walsh to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the northwest suburban 8th Congressional District. Duckworth was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016.

2018: The Chicago Blackhawks fired Joel Quenneville, the team’s 37th coach in franchise history, six games into the 2018-19 season. “Coach Q” led the Hawks to three Stanley Cup championships.
He resigned as coach of the Florida Panthers in 2021, two days after the second-winningest coach in NHL history was among those implicated for not swiftly responding to allegations by a Blackhawks player of being sexually assaulted by another coach during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Quenneville is currently the coach of the Anaheim Ducks.

2021: The Blackhawks fired Jeremy Colliton 12 games into his fourth season as the team’s coach — and three years to the date of his hiring. Colliton’s regime ended after 205 games with an 87-92-26 record (.488 points percentage).

2023: The Chicago Cubs announced they were bringing in former Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell and were moving on from David Ross. It was an abrupt ending to Ross’ tenure in Chicago that saw the Cubs go 262-284 (a .480 winning percentage) under his direction.
Want more vintage Chicago?
Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago’s past.
Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather at krumore@chicagotribune.com and mmather@chicagotribune.com
