The history of Dan Ryan Woods – Conclusion: Horse Thief Hollow
By Carol Flynn
Long before there was a Beverly or a Morgan Park, the Blue Island Ridge was known as Horse Thief Hollow (HTH).
Horse theft was a serious and widespread problem in the U.S. in the mid-1800s. Horses were a valuable commodity. Not only were they the major means of transportation, they were also beasts of burden. Stolen horses were easy to transport “on the hoof.”
A major vigilante movement in the southern states in the 1830s drove horse thieves north. By 1840 northern Illinois was a hotbed of illegal activity. Stolen horses were brought to Chicago for sale from all over the Midwest.
Horse thieves were considered the lowest of the criminal classes. In Illinois and other states, horse theft was made a capital offense. There is no documentation that people were legally executed for horse theft although they did go to jail for the crime. There are, however, many documented stories of vigilantes lynching accused horse thieves. One major problem with this form of “justice” was that vigilantes sometimes hanged the wrong man.
The deep, heavily wooded ravines and gullies with flowing streams that ran through the Ridge provided perfect hide-outs for horse thieves. In 1884, A. T. Andreas wrote in his “History of Cook County” that there was a deep and steep ravine that local farmers observed horse thieves using for “frequent visitations.” Bags of oats and other supplies, hoof prints and an occasional horseshoe were found left behind. The location of this ravine was given as “on the hill on which Morgan Park is situated, and a little south.”
The location of this ravine has been a question for historians. Since the northern boundary of Morgan Park was 107th Street, this ravine had to be south of that street. Two early histories mention ravines that fit the location.
First, William Barnard, one of the earliest settlers on the Ridge, wrote there was a ravine just south of what is now 107th Street that was called Horse Thief Hollow. An early newspaper included a photograph of a bridge over a deep ravine on Tasso Place, an early name for 108th Place. Government Geological Survey maps do show a ravine was there although there is little sign of it today. David Herriott, the postmaster of Morgan Park and publisher/editor of the Morgan Park Post newspaper, who knew local history well, identified 108th Place at Longwood Drive as the site of Horse Thief Hollow. This ravine is likely the spot mentioned by Andreas.
Another ravine was identified by John Volp, a newspaper editor from Blue Island who published a book in 1935 about the first one hundred years of Blue Island and the Ridge. He stated there was a wide ravine or hollow in the Ridge between 115th Street and 119th Street that was used by horse thieves and known as Horse Thief Hollow. This depression also shows up on Survey maps but again, is not really evident today. Just south of that, Volp added, was a very dense stand of trees through which the Vincennes Road passed that was known as “Robber’s Woods.” Farmers returning from selling their produce in Chicago were waylaid there and robbed of their hard-earned profits. It was an area to be shunned.
In 1926, another newspaper wrote that the ravine in the south section of Dan Ryan Woods, which became the aqueduct system known today, was a “rendezvous of the biggest gang of horse thieves operating in Illinois.” This was too far north to be considered Morgan Park, and even that article admitted the section was the most “inaccessible portion of the whole tract.” Andreas states the thieves used a buggy to move their equipment and supplies and it is difficult to envision driving a buggy into that location, but horses could have been kept in there.
There are other locations put forth as possibilities, and sometimes it seems that anyone with a dent in his/her backyard thinks that was the original location of Horse Thief Hollow. But it is possible and maybe even probable that through the years multiple locations were used by horse thieves and the ravine referred to by Andreas was just one location.
What happened to the horse thieves is also a question. One story is that the Morgan family called in the state militia in the 1850s to drive out the horse thieves, and there was a shootout on the Ridge in which the horse thieves were killed, or captured and jailed. Another story has some horse thieves hanged and buried on the Ridge, and still another has them coming down with the “ague” or malaria in prison. No verification of any of these stories has been found to date but they make for great urban folklore.
One thing that did happen is that encroaching “civilization” including more formal and organized law and order efforts forced horse thieves and other “Wild West” characters to move their operations farther and farther west until they ran out of territory and people’s tolerance. Andreas reports there were horse thieves on the Ridge as late as 1863. One newspaper reported the horse thieves on the Ridge were never caught and they moved on. This is likely the real story.
Because so much development has gone on, and the original topography of the land has been altered substantially, today imagination has to be used to picture what the area looked like 180 years ago. The undeveloped land in the south section of Dan Ryan Woods, the last remnant of the “wild Ridge,” does give a good idea of the natural terrain that horse thieves would have found advantageous to their endeavors.
There is a presentation and Power Point program on Horse Thief Hollow available for booking (when it is safe again to meet in groups). Send a message to author/presenter Carol Flynn at cflynn2013@yahoo.com for more information.
This concludes the series on Dan Ryan Woods. Thank you to everyone who followed RHS for the last few months to read these posts. Feedback, sharing of stories, and questions are welcomed. Stay tuned for new topics!