1869 Chicago mayoral election

1869 Chicago mayoral election

←  1867 November 2, 1869 [1] 1871  →

Nominee Roswell B. Mason George W. Gage Party Citizens Party Republican Popular vote 19,826 11,410 Percentage 63.47% 36.53%

Mayor before election John B. Rice Republican Elected mayor Roswell B. Mason Citizens Party

In the Chicago mayoral election of 1869, Citizens Party nominee Roswell B. Mason defeated Republican nominee George W. Gage by a landslide 27-point margin.

This was the last mayoral election before the Great Chicago Fire took place.

Citizens Party candidate Mason was an executive in the Illinois Central Railroad. Republican Party candidate Gage was a businessman who operated the Tremont House and Sherman House hotels.

The Citizens Reform ticket was a nonpartisan reform slate which aimed to challenge the power of German Republican political boss Anton C. Hesing. ^[2]

Results

1869 Chicago mayoral election ^[3]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Citizens Party	Roswell B. Mason	19,826	63.47
	Republican	George W. Gage	11,410	36.53
Turnout			31,236

Aftermath

Mason would only serve a single term as mayor. Gage would go on to serve as the president of the Chicago White Stockings baseball team (today's Chicago Cubs) and serve as Chicago's South Parks Commissioner ^[4] (during which time he commissioned a park which would subsequently bear his name).

References

1. Republican Ticket Election Tuesday, November 2, 1869 Archived December 9, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Illinois Staats-Zeitung -- September 21, 1869
2. Schneirov, Richard (1998). Labor and Urban Politics: Class Conflict and the Origins of Modern Liberalism in Chicago, 1864-97. University of Illinois Press. p. 49. ISBN   978-0-252-06676-4 . Retrieved May 17, 2020.
3. "RaceID=486044". Our Campaigns. Retrieved December 8, 2018.
4. Annual Report of the South Park Commissioners, 1873