Vintage Tribune

Vintage photos from the archives of the Chicago Tribune

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Young people display the trash they’ve cleaned up along the 2100 block of West Division Street in Chicago on Aug. 31, 1972. Photo by James Mayo.

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One of the first drivers to use the new CTA Park-n-Ride lot at Lawrence and Kimball avenues arrives at the coin-operated barrier gate on March 7, 1955. Watching are Walter P. McCarter, from left, Virgil E. Gunlock and C.F. Rogier, vice president of Johnson Farebox company. Photo by Alton Kaste.

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50 years ago today, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

His death set off more than 100 riots across the country, including the most devastating civil disturbance in Chicago’s history.

Today, a difficult question remains: Why are pockets of Chicago’s West Side still decimated?

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Mitchell Tower, located at the corner of University Avenue and 57th Street at the University of Chicago, in 1927. Construction for the building was completed in 1903 and was designed after a tower at Oxford University.

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Chicago Police Officer Henry Davis was responsible for helping rescue 17 people in a fire on May 27, 1959. Davis, 34, and an ex-firefighter, discovered the fire at 9 E. 18th St. while walking his beat. He ran inside and began rousing the residents. Photo by Jack Mulcahy.

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Alice Sousta, left, and Blanche Goodman, right, two of the star performers among the “feminine court stars” at the Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works in 1929.

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A workman fills a balloon with liquid hydrogen to carry a cosmic ray apparatus 90,000 feet into the air on Sept. 6, 1950, at the University of Chicago's Stagg Field. The balloon was expected to soar 90,000 feet in the air before being automatically released by a clock and float to the earth by parachute. Photo by Bill Allison.

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There's something interesting in that showcase, but Mrs. Lucille Anderson keeps a tight rein on little Michael, 2, as she pauses in her Christmas shopping on Dec. 20, 1947.

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The intersection of 64th Street and Cottage Grove in 1928 in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago.

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The south end of the LaSalle Street tunnel at Randolph Street on March 25, 1939.

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Grand and Rush, July 13, 1970: Overhead trolley wires snapped, stopping traffic at rush hour. Photo by Don Casper

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Original caption: For the genuine lowdown on directing Chicago traffic, we give you Dorothy Campbell, a police recruit who started her training last September. She was assigned duty at Michigan Avenue and Balbo Drive as part of her training the other day, and Tribune photographer Bob Fila was there to catch her style. An example of her whistle work is shown here on Feb. 22, 1977. She graduates from the Police Academy in July.

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A huge crowd gathered for Emmett Till's funeral outside the Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ on the South Side on Sept. 3, 1955. Photo by Phil Mascione.

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Lucille Gassaway, of Chicago, and Donald Sawyer, of New York, demonstrate a cork screw step as they dance the boogie woogie at the Congress Hotel in Chicago in 1941.

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Chicago police Officer Kopitke, star #1282, directs traffic in Chicago in an undated photo.

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Little Ray Bullard with drums in 1929.

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An aviation pioneer named Roy Knabenshue brought his dirigible to Chicago in 1914, offered 25-minute balloon rides and settled on a great idea:

Why not hire a cameraman to film Chicago from the air?

The Tribune recently retraced his route over the city. See the footage here.