Ticketholders should meet their tour guide at the northeast corner of South Ellis Avenue and East 49th Street at least 10 minutes prior to the start time of the tour.
It was called “The Trial of the Century,” a media circus before we even had the term. In 1924, two University of Chicago students kidnapped and murdered a young schoolboy in Kenwood, just north of Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side. America was riveted by details of the grisly crime; the lawyerly maneuverings of celebrity attorney Clarence Darrow were a source of daily discussion and distraction. Your tour guide and fellow time-traveler is University of Chicago scholar and noted storyteller Paul Durica, who reveals how a collection of artifacts—a pair of glasses, an Underwood typewriter, a green touring car, a length of rope, a chisel with a taped handle, a checkered stocking—helped disprove the alibi given by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. Had these young men of wealth and education turned to murder, as they later claimed, for the “thrill of it?” This walking tour will begin at the corner of 49th Street and South Ellis Avenue and will require ticketholders to walk a total of eight blocks, with the opportunity for at least one rest stop.
Please note: advance tickets sales are required for this program. Tickets to these tours are not included in the Hyde Park day pass and must be purchased separately.
