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Curious City

What’s The Oldest Family Business in Chicago?

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8642 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Tracking down the oldest family business in the city is not as easy as it seems. The city’s business records only go back to 2002. Time for a fishing expedition.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:07.2

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0:11.7

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0:17.1

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0:23.5

Start or increase your monthly gift by $3 today at WBEZ.org slash donate.

0:31.4

It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate.

0:37.4

Report. Explore. And investigate. Report.

0:38.1

Explore.

0:38.9

From WBEZ.

0:41.7

What's up, Chicago?

0:42.8

It's Erin Allen.

0:44.4

When I think of a family business, it's the small shops I grew up around that come to mind the most.

0:50.3

The barbershop my mama worked at that was run by a barber and his nephew, or the father-daughter catering company that sold baked goods during the holidays, or the three stylish sisters who ran a cobbler shop around a corner.

1:03.1

But actually, some of the biggest enterprises in our culture are, or were at some point family businesses, Walmart, Ford Motor Company, Comcast,

1:14.5

big or small, we love to think about starting something, making it successful, and keeping

1:19.7

that success in the family. I mean, look at how popular shows like Empire and Succession

1:25.6

are, with all their nuance and drama.

1:28.5

This week, we got a question on the topic from Jonathan Schlesinger.

1:32.5

He's the Chicago Urban Fishing Program Coordinator for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

1:38.9

Jonathan wanted to know, what is the oldest family business in Chicago?

1:43.7

And he sent reporter Robert Lorizel on a bit of a fishing expedition looking for the answer.

1:52.8

This is the sort of question where it can be hard to find one definitive answer.

...

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