Take a walk back to Chicago's Mospratt Street
Curious to know what Bridgeport looked like back in the day? So were we.
While we’re editing the lineup local folks with fantastic stories — badass Bridgeport women, stunning artists, an aspiring vegan chef — we thought we’d share some images with you.
I moved back to Chicago 11 years ago, and my mom urged me to start digging into her father’s family’s history. We didn’t know much about her Russian side; we had some names, some dates and some landmarks to help us, but memory fogs over time.
During that decade, I researched in spurts. Life, you know, got in the way. And I thought: There’s always time. My mom is gone, and I still don’t know everything I set out to find. But here’s some of what I do know.
Sanborn Map Company published fire insurance maps for Bridgeport in Vol. 4, 1912 - May 1950. The listing for what would be my great-grandfather’s store is marked both Aberdeen and Mospratt street.
You’ll see “Mospratt” spelled differently, and while we haven’t been able to fully verify the correct spelling, we think we’ve got it right.
This ad comes from Katalikas, a Lithuanian-language Catholic newspaper published 1899 to 1916, according to Library of Congress Archives.
I found an ad in it that connects with family stories. We don’t speak Lithuanian, but Google does:
If Google is correct, the 1912 ad says the owner of a grocery store wants to move and is selling his business. “The business has been well developed for several years, inhabited by Lithuanians and Poles,” the translation reads.
We’ve got more work to do, and we’ll post what we learn.
Next week, we’ll share more on our Mospratt stories, including when to hear them on Lumpen Radio.
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