Favorite Chicagoland Fun Facts

[Curly Q. Bobalink]

Originally Posted by Nearwest

Twinkies were created in 1930 in Schiller Park. The inventor was James Dewar, a baker for the Continental Baking Co. He came up with the name by using part of the name of a popular children's shoe band, Twinkle Toe Shoes.

The original Twinkie filling was banana cream, but it was replaced by vanilla cream in World War 2, because bananas were a rationed food item during the war.

Kool Aid was originally invented in Hastings, Nebraska, but in the 1950's, General Foods had purchased the brand and built a large factory at 74th and Rockwell Avenue in Chicago near Marquette Park. In addition to traditional packets of Kool Aid, they manufactured Good Seasons Salad Dressing, Country Time Lemonade, Sugar-Sweet Kool Aid, Open Pit BBQ sauce, and in about 1977, Pop Rocks and Space Dust. Don't ask me how I know (I still sneeze from being around Good Seasons too long). Unfortunately, the plant closed in the 90's, I believe, Kraft Foods took over General Foods and moved production elsewhere.

Interestingly, in 1977 the Nazi's planned to march in Marquette Park (watch the Blues Brothers for an alternate history). Racial tensions were a little high at the plant because of it. A friend who worked in the Mixing Department took his big magic marker, and discreetly drew a swastika on the side of the helmet of a fork truck driver while we were sitting at lunch in the Cafeteria one day. The driver put on his helmet, not noticing the emblem on the side. Word was that he received more than a "little" criticism when he went back out into the warehouse, LOL. I still laugh about that. A couple of days later I went into a washroom, and upon closing the door to the stall, saw a large "smiley face" (very popular at the time) drawn on the back of the door, except this one had the "smile" encircled, which made it looked like it had oversized lips. I'm not saying who I think did that, but it was done with a big magic marker, ROFL yet today. It's amazing how well we all got along, one of my best friends there was an older black guy, I could repeat a half-hour of his stories yet today. His name was "Jimmy", and he wore shoes about three sizes too large, because he was embarrassed that he had small feet.

I had an Aunt who worked at Nabisco (now Mondelez) on 73rd and Kedzie, they made more Oreos than Fran Ross, LOL. I could smell that bakery from miles away when the wind was right, it was GOOD.