An excerpt from Readers' Digest -
The Surprising Reason Why Chicago Is Called the "Windy City"
It's got nothing to do with the weather.
By Meghan Jones
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| Grey Tree Studios/Shutterstock |
When you hear someone mention the “Windy City,” you immediately know they’re talking about Chicago, as surely as the “Big Apple” means New York and “Sin City” refers to Las Vegas. Knowing this, you might make sure to pack your best windbreaker for your first trip to Illinois’ biggest city. But it turns out that, while Chicago is as prone to a blustery day as any other metropolis, its wind isn’t particularly exceptional. How did the city get this nickname?
| Well, when the nickname came to be, the “Windy City” meaning wasn’t describing the weather but the people. (Don’t worry, not that kind of wind.) Nineteenth-century journalists first gave Chicago this designation when criticizing the city’s elite as “full of hot air.” In the Chicago Daily Tribune, a reporter wrote in 1858 that “[a] hundred militia officers, from corporal to commander … air their vanity … in this windy city.” Another reporter, a proud citizen of Milwaukee, boasted that his own city was the better of the two: “We are proud of Milwaukee because she is not overrun with a lazy police force as is Chicago—because her morals are better … than Chicago, the windy city of the West.” They meant that the city was full of “windbags,” people with inflated egos who cared about nothing but profit. (Learn these 12 signs someone has a massive ego.) https://www.rd.com/article/chicago-windy-city/ |
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