The purpose, aside from the fact I’ve been all coughing and bronchial and wanted a story I could write from my sickbed, was to get people to explore certain sites I like, including this one, Atlas Obscura, the Chicago Collections Consortium, the Chicago History Museum, Mysterious Chicago and Curious City.

So I made the quiz goldanged impossible. (And Curious City, that thing we talked about? It’s handled.)

From the Fool Killer submarine to park bats to Iroquois Theater Assistant Chief Usher Archie Guerin, here are the answers you didn’t get to the 1,001 Chicago Afternoons Really Difficult Trivia Quiz.

The Answers

1. Assistant chief usher of the Iroquois Theater, seen in news photos following the fire.

Archie Guerin, as seen in this Chicago Collections Consortium photo.

A brief word about the Collections Consortium: It’s awesome.

It’s an online home for the combined collections of 18 local institutions, from universities to libraries to museums to the frickin’ Brookfield Zoo. A big reason for this quiz was for an excuse to tell more people about the site.

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2. The first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, located underneath the University of Chicago’s football field, was in a room originally constructed for this sport.

Squash. As in “that sport that’s not quite racquetball but no one can really explain how it isn’t.” As outlined in this Curious City story, Enrico Fermi and his team turned a squash court into the home of the first self-sustained nuclear reaction in 1942.

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3. Her husband signed away her objections to the Art Institute.

For this we turn to, well, me. Her name was Sarah Daggett and you can find out more about her in #566: The Gray of the Lions.

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4. A mysterious submarine found in the river, maybe.

The Fool Killer. Maybe.

Adam Selzer of Mysterious Chicago has put in a yeoman’s effort on separating truth from lie in the story of the Fool Killer, which was possibly a scam, possibly a hidden submarine complete with dog skeleton. Check out his whole fascinating site.

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5. The only newspaper to make deadline after the Great Chicago Fire.

A little blurb in an 1888 listing of newspapers I got as a gift once led me to the story of Myra Bradwell and the Chicago Legal News. It’s one of my favorite stories about the Great Fire. A little girl rescued the mailing list from the legal newspaper created by her mother, who was kinda sorta the nation’s first female attorney, oh you know what? Just read #555: Myra Bradwell and the Fireproof Newspaper.

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6. This obscure library at the Leather Archives and Museum has a flowery name.

The Teri Rose Memorial Library. See what I did with the hint there? Obscure? Like Atlas Obscura? Like this Atlas Obscura listing of Chicago’s secret libraries?

I’m very clever. The “mysterious submarine” was a hint too.

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7. The exciting voice of this person appeared at the Cairo Supper Club in this Egyptomania photo.

Manuel De Silva.

Although it’s not part of the quiz, here’s a review I found of him in a review from Billboard in 1948:

“Manuel De Silva, billed as the “New Voice,” loses little time living up to the cognomen. Handsome youth exhibits an excellent song choice and his lusty-lunged barying nets him the show’s top mitt. Manages striking nuances with a cultured piping of Donkey Serenade and surpasses this effort with smart selling of Sorrento, Temptation and When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. Had to beg off. Lad looks like a comer and it shouldn’t be long before he’s rated tops in the field.”

It’s on page 48, where you also learn the “Mary Kaye Trio” was originally the “Mary Kaaihue Trio.” They’re from Hawaii.

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8. You can find the records of the Jane Dent Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People at this library.

The Richard J. Daley Library Special Collections and University Archives at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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9. When the Loop addresses were converted to the new numbering system in 1911, the Hotel Princess at 267 S. Clark St. got this as its new address.

331 S. Clark St. For this you have to use the address conversion guides in the Chicago History Museum, Building and House History section.

Both Curious City and I have done stories on Edward Brennan, the force behind the new numbering system, although only I present a compelling case for why he was history’s greatest monster.

I mean, I was super-sleepy the next day, man.

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10. This Uptown silent movie studio produced both early Sherlock Holmes movies and the world’s first pie in the face.

Essanay. You can find out about the Sherlock Holmes and watch the movie in the room where it was shot in an upcoming joint Atlas Obscura/Mysterious Chicago event. You can find out about the pie from me in story #602: Chicago, the Home of the Pie in the Face.

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11. Three werewolves from this area of the Baltic are killing time waiting for prey in a South Loop statue. One has a book.

Livonia. As in the Livonian Wolves in this Atlas Obscura entry. It’s a creepy myth of Christmastime and the fattest werewolf.

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12. “Kitchen Klenzer” was advertised for this much in the storefront window in a 1963 photograph of a drugstore at Drexel and 47th.

Two for 21 cents. I mean, seriously, just play around with the Consortium site. You can find just, just anything there.

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13. Researchers found this species of bat living under the boardwalk at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Bonus points for finding out from a particular interactive display on a certain radio station’s website.

I was going for the little brown bat, as mentioned in the Curious City interactive display created by Erik Rodriguez of The Illustrated Press, but a sharp-eyed reader (hi, Joann) found in the accompanying article that all seven locally common species have been found under the boardwalk.

So if you said:

• little brown bat
• big brown bat
• hoary bat
• silver-haired bat
• eastern red bat
• evening bat
• eastern pipistrelle
• or the number seven

you should be good.

Anyway, thanks for taking/please forgive me for this quiz. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get more ‘tussin.

Read a random story that’s most likely not a quiz

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Sure, you know that the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was at the U of C campus, but do you know what sport the room was originally made for?

Part of this project is to get people interested in the historical resources around us every day, to show that history is a live, breathing thing.

That and the fact my cute little sneezy cold has morphed into a broad, hacking bronchitis and I wanted a story I could write indoors led to today’s challenge, 13 of the most fiendishly obscure questions my cold medicine-addled brain could muster.

This being the Internet, you can find all these answers in seconds with a few well-chosen keywords. But the point of this is exploration, to give you an excuse to crack into the Chicago Collections Consortium’s historical photographs for the Iroquois Theater usher or WBEZ’s Curious City for the location of “Chicago Pile 1.” (Those two are on the house.)

Search within the collections, of course. But while Phineas H. Google has made a heck of a site, this will be more fun for you the deeper in you dig.

All of the answers can be found at one or more of the following sites:

• 1,001 Chicago Afternoons
• Atlas Obscura
• Curious City
• Chicago Collections Consortium
• The Chicago History Museum, Building and House History
• Mysterious Chicago

In disclosure, I contribute to Atlas Obscura for fun (no money changes hands, alas). I also am included in the Chicago History Museum’s ongoing “Chicago Authored” exhibit and am participating in a professional development event for teachers on April 2.

Other than that, I have no connection to any of these sites other than that I like ‘em. And I would straight up kill a man to get a job with WBEZ’s Curious City.

Seriously, who do you want done? One of those WFMT guys? Consider it handled.

Enjoy! Answers Friday.

The Questions

1. Assistant chief usher of the Iroquois Theater, seen in news photos following the fire.

2. The first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, located underneath the University of Chicago’s football field, was in a room originally constructed for this sport.

3. Her husband signed away her objections to the Art Institute.

4. A mysterious submarine found in the river, maybe.

5. The only newspaper to make deadline after the Great Chicago Fire.

6. This obscure library at the Leather Archives and Museum has a flowery name.

7. The exciting voice of this person appeared at the Cairo Supper Club in this Egyptomania photo.

8. You can find the records of the Jane Dent Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People at this library.

9. When the Loop addresses were converted to the new numbering system in 1911, the Hotel Princess at 267 S. Clark St. got this as its new address.

10. This Uptown silent movie studio produced both early Sherlock Holmes movies and the world’s first pie in the face.

11. Three werewolves from this area of the Baltic are killing time waiting for prey in a South Loop statue. One has a book.

12. “Kitchen Klenzer” was advertised for this much in the storefront window in a 1963 photograph of a drugstore at Drexel and 47th.

13. Researchers found this species of bat living under the boardwalk at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Bonus points for finding out from a particular interactive display on a certain radio station’s website. (Edit 3:34 p.m. March 9: The article connected with the interactive element mentions more species than the interactive element did. Name either the species listed in the interactive, or the number of species mentioned in the article.)

Think you’ve got it? Email your answers to 1001chicago@gmail.com.

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