Date:    Sun, 22 Feb 1998 14:42:11 EST
<br>From:    "Barry A. Popik"  Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM 
<br>Subject: Windy City; Magic City
<br>
<br>     There wasn't an earlier "Windy City" that I could find than the April 21,
<br>1886 SPORTING LIFE.  The March 17, 1886, pg. 4, col. 5 SPORTING LIFE has "FROM
<br>CHICAGO./ Approaching Spring and Base Ball Games in the Lake City."
<br>     I extensively checked Pittsburgh a few weekends ago (I'd checked Chicago,
<br>NY, St. Louis, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit), and "Windy City" wasn't there
<br>in May 1886 for the Haymarket crisis reports.
<br>     So I rechecked the LOUISVILLE COURIER-JOURNAL.  (Boy, did I screw this
<br>one up.  Perhaps a few "Lake City" citations there in late April and early May
<br>threw me off.)  I checked March-April 1886 and found this, 17 April 1886, pg.
<br>2, col. 5:
<br>
<br>     CHICAGO NOTES.
<br>A Louisville Man's Views As to the
<br>     Causes Producing the Windy
<br>     City's Prosperity.
<br>(Correspondence of the Courier-Journal.)
<br>     CHICAGO, April 12.--(article is long, but of limited interest--ed.)
<br>     T. M. G.
<br>
<br>     There was a wind storm throughout the midwest at that time (1886).  An
<br>article on April 7, pg. 6, col. 1 is "WIND AND WATER."  About "sowing the
<br>wind, reaping the whirlwind" that I had found in connection to Chicago's
<br>Haymarket crisis in May, an article from El Paso, Texas, April 10, pg. 5, col.
<br>2, is "REAPING THE WHIRLWIND/ Disorderly Strikers to Jail for Their Bad
<br>Conduct."
<br>     I'll probably have to go a little further back in the Louisville Courier-
<br>Journal, and also recheck the humor publication TEXAS SIFTINGS.  And THEN I'll
<br>be done on "Windy City."
<br>     A different Chicago nickname was found in the Providence Evening Press, 5
<br>April 1875, pg. 1, col. 8:  "LETTER FROM CHICAGO./ GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF
<br>THE GOLDEN CITY."
<br>
<br>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<br>----------------------------------------
<br>MAGIC CITY
<br>
<br>     A check of the web shows that Miami, Florida; Birmingham, Alabama; and
<br>Minot, North Dakota all currently bill themselves as a "Magic City."  One web
<br>site shows a Miami "Magic City" post card from the 1920s.
<br>     I was checking "Windy City" when I found this in the Louisville Courier-
<br>Journal, 11 March 1886, pg. 5, col. 4:
<br>
<br>     THE MAGIC CITY.
<br>A Very Eulogistic Sketch of Thrifty
<br>     Little Birmingham.
<br>The Alabama City That Will Be a
<br>     Great Iron Center.
<br>     BIRMINGHAM, ALA., March 5.--To a stranger the "crackers," or people
<br>living in the backwoods settlements of this section, may appear to be a little
<br>uncouth, and lacking in some of the vim and push of the real life Yankee, but
<br>none the less are they possessed of many traits that are recognized as
<br>peculiarly American.  A genuine outcropping of this becomes apparent when you
<br>hear one of them calling this place "Burningham," and the citizens, in
<br>consequence, sometimes gaining from the same lips the very suggestive title of
<br>"Burninghammers."  This may arise from a quaint sort of helplessness in
<br>pronunciation, or from the indifference to such matters generally displayed by
<br>backwoodsmen, but more likely it is a case where they dart at once to the
<br>designation of all others the most genuinely descriptive and appropriate,
<br>though riding rough-shod over all the rules of grammar and "culchah."  The
<br>truth of its application will be evident when you have a chance to observe the
<br>persistent energy with which the "Burninghammers" have been striking the iron
<br>while it was hot, and kept constantly so by the enthusiasm of success and
<br>prosperity in the upbuilding of their little city...
<br>
<br>     The long article puts "Magic City" in the context of the city's growth
<br>like magic, or "upbuilding."  (Upbuilding?)...Anyone have an earlier
<br>"culchah"?
<br>