Postcards were used to message friends and families before the telephone. Today, many of the photographs that have survived of the Forest Park Amusement Park, are from postcards. The Forest Park Amusement Park opened at DesPlaines and Harrison in 1908, during the golden age of postcards.
This postcard from 1914 features The Mysterious Chesters — Harry and Blanche. The pair, Harry dressed in a tuxedo and Blanche dressed in a turban and robes inspired by the east would have been typical for illusionists of the time. We do not know who the Mysterious Chesters were or their performance but it was likely very popular at the park.
Harry Houdini, in New York, was very popular this same year and performed his famous Battery Park Escape — where he was shackled in a box thrown in the water in front of an estimated crowd of 15,000.
