Chicago April Fools' stories: A dinosaur attack in 1906, an exclusive restaurant in water intake crib
On this day 120 years ago, a real newspaper that still exists today published a story about an attack on Chicago by "hordes of prehistoric monsters."
No, we did not make that up. The Chicago Tribune did, in fact, issue a 7,000-word story on April 1, 1906, with the headline, "Chicago invaded by hordes of prehistoric monsters dealing death and destruction."
The Tribune writers of 120 years ago did, in fact, make up the content of the article. April Fools' Day was a thing back then, too — and of course, other fanciful stories that might have gotten Chicagoans riled up have turned up since.
"Hordes of gigantic beasts"
The Tribune has reproduced the infamous dinosaur article on its website. In vivid, dramatic language more befitting of a pulp novel accompanied by fanciful illustrations, the story said that reports of monsters first started surfacing in Canada, only to be met with mocking dismissal in Chicago.
The monsters were described as a sea serpent with "a huge alligator shaped head eight feet long, with eyes as big as the head of a barrel," "a huge, batlike bird, whose wings stretched fully eighty feet from tip to tip. Its head was fully five feet long, with a pelicanlike bill," and a beast with a head and neck like a snake and a body 18 feet thick and covered in scales.
But while people fled Canada by the tens of thousands, life went on as usual in Chicago, until six fanciful pterodactyls with wings 50 to 60 feet long were spotted over Racine, Wisconsin, then Evanston, and then finally Chicago, the story went on. That was enough to cause a panic.
Soon afterward, a Diplodocus was stomping through downtown Chicago and eating the tops off trees in Grant Park, the story said. The Diplodocus went on to get into a fight with a Tyrannosaurus Rex on Michigan Avenue along the park, destroying trains, trolleys, and even buildings in the process.
The writers upped the ante with the horror prose as the story went on, with other dinosaurs surfacing in Lake Michigan, finding their way to Lincoln Park, and meeting an ultimately unsuccessful defense from the animals at the Lincoln Park Zoo.
"With one awful roar, the big male lion leaped at the throat of the dinosaur and he was followed almost instantly by the two female lions and three of the tigers. All six of the jungle beasts landed upon the one dinosaur," the story went on. "It was of the carnivorous type and a battle royal in which the dinosaur was slain followed; but other huge monsters crowded up and took part in the unequal combat, and within a few minutes the carcasses of the lions and tigers were trampled and torn to pieces."
The military came with artillery and submarines, and finally defeated the dinosaurs. But it took five weeks, the story said.
It seems unlikely that the Chicagoans of 1906 would have read that story as anything other than a piece of deliberately absurd creative writing, particularly with a "Professor Dryasdust" from the University of Chicago being name-checked. And in reality, of course, the only dinosaurs in Chicago are found at places like the Field Museum of Natural History.
An exclusive restaurant that Chicagoans can't visit?
An April Fools' story in the Chicago Reader 102 years later, however, likely got a few readers' blood boiling if they didn't figure out right away that it was the product of a writer's imagination.
For April Fools' Day in 2008, writer Mike Sula profiled an exclusive restaurant purportedly located inside the Carter H. Harrison Water Intake Crib two miles out in Lake Michigan, and its conceited, entitled, obnoxious (fictional) owner.
Albert D'Angelo was described as the 24-year-old owner of a New York Stock Exchange trader who had launched an underground itinerant restaurant experience where he claimed to have invented edible menus and foie gras lollipops. Now, he had somehow figured out a way to open a restaurant called Crib in a decommissioned piece of city infrastructure that requires a boat to get to.
"The 13 two-tops his designers jimmied into the cramped 108-year-old cylindrical water collection facility are booked for the opening on Tuesday, April 1, and every night thereafter for two months," Sula wrote of D'Angelo and his stupid restaurant. "The voice-mail box has been full since the day the unpublished phone number for Crib went active in late February. If the call is coming from a local area code, he doesn't even bother answering."
Indeed, D'Angelo was also quoted as saying openly that, despite opening a restaurant in Chicago — well, in a city-owned structure in the vast Great Lake next to Chicago — he thought Chicago and its people were beneath him.
Sula wrote that D'Angelo said: "I'm not opening a great Chicago restaurant, I'm opening a world-class destination. And for better or worse, diners that make those distinctions live in New York, Los Angeles, London. These people have read that Chicago is the new front line in the culinary jihad. They don't compete for reservations at Gordon Ramsey anymore. They're looking for something most people can't have — and now Chicago is the place people can't have it. Most people, I mean."
D'Angelo said this while allegedly taking hits from a glass bong half-filled with a French wine worth about $62,000 per bottle at market price.
The headline for this piece was "You Can't Eat There," with the subhead, "Don't fool yourself — if you live in Chicago, you'll never get a reservation at the Crib."
But such was the case if you didn't live in Chicago, too. The city's water intake cribs draw fresh water from Lake Michigan for people's use, and that is all. There are six of them, but only two are still in use, and the one where the restaurant was purportedly located is not one of them.
As for Albert D'Angelo, reports note that he started out as a character in T.C. Boyle's 1987 short story "Sorry Fugu." Chef Albert was a restaurateur trying to wheedle a good review out of a tough restaurant critic.
Other Chicago April Fools' highlights
While they might not put out stories so dramatic or infuriating, all different Chicago institutions get into the game for April Fool's Day every year. Last year, the Chicago Transit Authority claimed it had issued a "Heatlamp Cookbook" with a photo of rotisserie chickens under a bank of 'L' stop heat lamps. In 2019, the Chicago Cubs claimed that they were issuing special fragrances designed to smell like Wrigley Field — "Dirt," "Leather," and "Ivy."
This April Fools' Day, the Chicago Department of Transportation claimed it was introducing a new app called "Wackr" just for navigating Lower Wacker Drive — featuring "impound lot 3D navigation," a "wrong-turn confidence booster," "rescue mode," and "offline mode… because you'll need it."
Meanwhile, The Second City put out an Instagram story claiming that starting Wednesday night, it will allow smoking in its theaters for the first time since 2002.
"As always, we are committed to providing a space where our audience can feel comfortable and truly relaxed," The Second City said. "We're eager to give audiences this unique, time-honored experience."
Those attending The Second City Mainstage 114th Revue on Wednesday night are not advised to test this.