BATTLE OF THE VIADUCT: Ghosts of Chicago’s Haunted Red Bridge

Just north of Bridgeport--one of Chicago's oldest neighborhoods--Halsted Street becomes a bridge across the Chicago River. The bridge is painted bright red, but it was known as the Red Bridge long before the paint job. For it was the place where much blood was spilled during Chicago's "forgotten battle": the 1877 "Battle of the Viaduct."

That July, with the heat of the summer creeping under Chicago's collective skin, a national railroad strike brought enraging--and inspiring--headlines into Chicago newspapers.  Mobs were on the march in San Francisco, St. Louis and other major cities. It was the first nationwide labor strike in American history, and many Americans had long feared its arrival. This was long before the eight hour workday or other labor laws. Bosses did what they wanted. Workers complied or were shown the door.

People were enraged, and many saw the very real possibility of another civil war, with laborers pitted against the industrial kings. The anger of the underlings was felt by brothers-in-overalls everywhere, and disgruntled workers of every trade grumbled through the summer work days and nights.

Then, one morning, the Chicago Tribune read: "IT'S HERE."

The day before, on July 24th, freight hands and switchmen on the Michigan Central Railroad left their posts after bosses refused to erase yet another wage cut. As the next day rolled out after the Tribune’s headline, more than four dozen police officers had faced almost a thousand workers at the McCormick Reaper factory at Western and Blue Island as the latter tried to shut its doors.  An order to disperse was met with showers of rocks. The police--ordered by the mayor to fire only blanks into the air--began firing real bullets into the crowd. One man was killed and many wounded. As the day wore on, other scenes of violence erupted, and the death toll climbed: Five killed by police at the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad yard, three young laborers mortally shot at 16th and Halsted.

But the worst was yet to come.

That same morning of the Tribune's ominous headline, a group of workers also stepped off on a march through Chicago's centers of labor: the stockyards, the rail yards, the factories of Packingtown. As they went, others joined them: butchers in their aprons, welders, builders and boxcar packers. Many came carrying their tools: meat cleavers, hammers and wrenches.  The crowd grew to enormous size, and by the time it reached the Halsted Street viaduct, police estimated that some ten thousand angry souls had assembled.

When officers arrived on the scene, the crowd retreated to the opposite side of the viaduct, but police followed and opened fire. This so angered the crowd that members retaliated with a vengeance, hurling rocks, knives, tools and other items in return. Police responded to the attack with more gunfire. When the mob continued its assault, one sergeant ordered the cops to empty their guns into the crowd and retreat to the police station nearby, but they were unable to reach it because the bridge had been raised.  A small child lowered the bridge, opening the passage to the fleeing police and allowing mounted police to descend on the massive assembly. Huge numbers of police--some in large vehicles--were dispatched to the scene, and soon crowd control officer numbers neared those of the now thoroughly enraged mob. Throughout the day, as more crowds assembled in worker-heavy areas of the city, troops were sent to quell their growth. 

By the next morning, order had been restored. In all thirty workers and been killed and one hundred injured at the Battle of the Viaduct, thirteen of them police officers. Half of the dead were young men under the age of eighteen.

Like many scenes of past violence, you'd never know today what happened here on Halsted Street that terrible summer day so long ago. In grand Chicago fashion, no plaque marks the spot, no statue captures the moment.  Few even know why the bridge is red--or that it was red long before City of Chicago workers came to paint it that way. 

But locals say the place doesn't need a plaque. The ghosts remember.  For years, passers and drivers by this site have reported a number of anomalous experiences.  The most common, they say, is the sighting of a man on horseback--likely one of the mounted police dispatched to the scene where so much unhappiness boiled over that long ago Chicago day. Others say you can hear the mob still, their angry voices rising over what sounds like musket fire disappearing on the wind.