July 20 Illinois History Minute

It’s July 20th, and Illinois House Speaker Louie Lewis was born on a southern Illinois farm on this day in 1893. As a candidate for lieutenant governor in 1940,  Lewis countered charges of Democratic corruption with his own charges of Republican corruption.

Lewis lost the election to Republican Hugh Cross and his running mate, two-term governor Dwight Green.

Also on this day, the end of the 1894 Pullman strike– which began with a strike at the Pullman rail car factory in Chicago and ended with President Grover Cleveland calling out the Army to stop strikers from obstructing trains.