Talk about Convenience!

You have to visit this website: http://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/buildings-of-chicago/building/the-chicago-l/ They tell you about the history of Chicago's elevated railway system. The following was taken from that website:

Today, Chicago is the only city in the U.S. that still has elevated trains in its downtown area.

Beginning in the 1870s, as Chicago grew at an incredibly rapid pace, private companies laid rail tracks downtown and began introducing streetcars pulled by horses. In the 1880s, these horse-drawn trolleys were replaced by cable car services. But this form of transportation couldn’t handle a high volume of passengers and it added to street congestion. On June 6, 1892,

the first elevated—or “L”—train ran from 39th (now Pershing Road) and State streets to Congress Parkway and Wabash Avenue. By 1893, the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad extended this line to Jackson Park, the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Today, this section of track is still part of the Green Line. Multiple privately-operated train lines transported Chicagoans in the 1890s. However, these trains deposited people just outside the central business district—an area referred to as “the Loop” due to the cable cars that once created a loop around several blocks. A wealthy and controversial financier named Charles Tyson Yerkes soon changed all of this. Despite his sometimes illegal business practices, he had a lasting impact on Chicago by building elevated tracks above downtown streets to connect train lines together. Yerkes essentially created the Loop L we know today. The first full circuit of the Loop was completed in 1897. Its steel structure was designed by bridge designer John Alexander Low Waddell. The iconic riveted steel-plate form resembles that of the Eiffel Tower (1889) and the original Ferris Wheel (1893).

All of Chicago’s trains were either elevated or at street grade until the 1940s.

This post card was published by the V. O. Hammon Company of Chicago,

Illinois. Their headquarters were on Wabash Avenue - as in the picture's description. They were a major publisher of halftone lithographic view-cards of the Great Lakes region. They also published novelty cards. Most of their cards tend to have a distinct look as they were printed in crisp RGB colors with small red block lettering (like on the front of this post card). The V.O. Hammon Publishing Company, publisher of pictorial postcards, is listed in the Minneapolis, Minnesota city directory from 1904 until 1923. www.digitalpast.org/.../results.php?...hammon+publishing They began in 1900 and finished business just 5 years after this post card was mailed on February 17, 1918.