Chute came, of course, with aquarium credentials. I don’t believe Mr. Brunskill had any, I don’t know he was hired long before I got there. So I don’t know what his background was. But that was sort of the attitude there that if you’re told to do something, do it. Read More
What professional things from the aquarium field did you learn, or personal things did you learn from Mr. Chute?… Read More
So you were hired by Mr. Chute as a tank man?… Read More
Yes. Read More
What was your relationship with him?… Read More
The shark tank, which was 30 feet long and held maybe 30,000 gallons, I believe, my memory is getting a little dimmer and all that. The majority of the tanks were 1200 gallons. Smaller ones were four to 500 gallons, but they fit in very nicely that the aquarium was… Read More
And so we worked on that for many years to upgrade it. Read More
When you first started, how many people were working there?… Read More
40 people, 40 people. And this was 1950 when I started. Guards, janitors, souvenir sales, ticket sellers, office help, was the director, the assistant director, a secretary, and a bookkeeper, that was there. Engineering department, six tank men, as they call them on those days. And that added up to… Read More
So it’s look at the time was revolutionary, groundbreaking for an aquarium?… Read More
Well, Walter Chute with George Morse and one of the architects from Graham, Anderson by the name of Shavani, took a trip to Europe, and they went to aquariums in Germany, and Italy and other places and collected the best ideas they could from every aquarium. They went to Naples,… Read More
It was not stocked, but they let the public walkthrough and just look and see what the place looked like. And then in 1930, open it up in June, fully stocked with fish. Read More
And then the director, when it was fully stocked?… Read More
Was Walter Chute, who had come to help design the aquarium. And I have to look back and for those days it was one of the most workable aquariums that I ever saw. It was easy for the tank man, as they call them in those days, aquarist now, to… Read More
How did the Shedd come to be?… Read More
Well, that’s a long story. Mr. Chute, as I mentioned before, came from Boston and there was a fellow in Boston by the name of George Morse, M-O-R-S-E. And he was kind of a promoter, I think in the best sense of the word. And somehow, and I don’t know… Read More
And he came to Chicago when he was 17 and started working at Field & Leiter, which was the predecessor of Marshall Field Company. He started working in as a stock boy in the linen department making something like $15 or $20 a week. And from that humble position worked… Read More
Would you tell me a little something about that?… Read More
Yeah, sure. The car was divided basically into two sections. One section, which is about a third of the length of the car was living quarters. And they used typical old Pullman berths with an upper and a lower. And for six men, there was a small gully in there,… Read More
And we had our own generator that was driven by the axle. And while you were standing still, there was a propane generator that kept electricity going, and it was quite comfortable to ride in that. Okay, a little historical thing. Read More