CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Shootings, bombings, intimidation and murder: About 100 years ago, Chicago’s taxi industry had all four. Now, a new book called “Street Fight: The Chicago Taxi Wars of the 1920s” has brought the often forgotten era to light.
For local author Anne Morrissy, Chicago’s taxi wars weren’t just history — they involved her family. On Christmas Day in 1927, her great-grandfather died under mysterious circumstances on the South Side.
“He had just recently been promoted to president of the Yellow Cab Company,” she told WBBM. “He got up on Christmas morning 1927, left his six young children home alone with their mother, and he went out riding with a couple of business associates. He was found next to his horse in Jackson Park, dead of a single skull fracture, and they were never really able to prove what happened to him.”
Yellow Cab’s chief rival was Checker Taxi Company, with taxi drivers battling each other over fares, allegiances and turf claims. According to Morrissy, the rivalry escalated from “sophomoric pranks to cold-blooded murder, mass shootings and acts of domestic terrorism.”
Morrissy said the death of her great-grandfather sparked her interest in the era.
“The more I dug, the more interesting things I found going on at the time,” she said. “This was kind of at the height of the taxi wars, and so I wanted to dig into that story and figure out what was going on. Could this have [not been] an accident?”
“Street Fight” is now on sale.
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