Patrick Eugene Prendergast shot and killed Chicago mayor Carter Harrison Sr. on October 28, 1893, in the mayor’s home at what is now a parking lot at 333 S. Ashland. The delusional Prendergast, obsessed with writing postcards, believed that the mayor owed him a political office.
That year, Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition, the World’s Fair dedicated to Columbus’s arrival in North America in 1492. The October 30 closing ceremony was canceled and replaced with a funeral procession for Harrison. At 4:45 PM, the warship Michigan saluted the late mayor with its cannon.
