Chicago Democrat

City: Chicago

County: Cook

State: Illinois

The Chicago Democrat was the first newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. John Calhoun started the paper in 1833 and was its original editor. John Wentworth replaced him in 1836. Although the paper was originally Democratic in orientation, as Wentworth drifted toward the Republican Party after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, so did the paper. It was published as a weekly until 1840, then as a daily paper from February 24, 1840, onward. It ran until 1861, when the Chicago Tribune purchased it and merged it with the Tribune.

Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 52-53.