Oh how times have changed.
Many Oak Parkers vocally supported the state’s restaurant smoking ban when it was enacted just a few years ago. But 100 years prior, village residents were protesting the other side of the issue, fighting to keep their smoking rights — aboard the el.
According to WBEZ’s “Chicago History Today” blog, protesters were miffed in the fall of 1909 about the possibility of losing the smoking car on the Chicago & Oak Park Elevated Railroad (now the Green Line).
Yes, 80 percent of males smoked at least one cigar a day, but women not so much, and the smoking car was mostly empty during the day, according to WBEZ. So the car disappeared, and when conductors started enforcing the change, a “near-riot ensued.”
In November 1909, a crowd of 500 protesters gathered in Oak Park, and a citizen committee was formed to wage the battle, according to WBEZ. One of the smokers even challenged the president of the railroad to a boxing match, but the president stuck to his guns, even though other train lines allowed smoking for almost another 10 years — until the flu epidemic broke out.
