Chicago Flashback

The history of America’s third-largest city, as told through stories and photos from the Chicago Tribune archives.

The devoted journalists at the Chicago Tribune have been reporting the city’s news since 1847. As a result, the paper has amassed an inimitable, as-it-happened history of its hometown, a city first incorporated in 1837 that rapidly grew to become the third-largest in the United States. For the past decade, the Chicago Tribune has been mining its vast archive of photos and stories for its weekly feature Chicago Flashback, which deals with the significant people and events that have shaped the city’s history and culture from the paper’s founding to the present day, from the humorous to the horrible to the quirky to the remarkable.

Now the editors of the Tribune have carefully collected the best, most interesting Chicago Flashback features into a single volume. Each story is accompanied by at least one black-and-white image from the paper’s fabled photo vault located deep below Michigan Avenue’s famed Tribune Tower. Chicago Flashback offers a unique, you-are-there perspective on the city’s long and colorful history.