On July 10, 1886 Cap Streeter and his wife Maria were returning to Chicago from Milwaukee in their steamboat, The Reutan, when they crashed into a sandbar just off the shore at the end of East Superior Street. He eventually laid claim to the 186 acres of beach bounded by Erie Street to the south, Oak Street to the north, St. Clair Street to the west, and Lake Michigan to the east. Cap’s notable neighbors did not agree that the land Cap claimed was his for the taking. Although Cap lost the the land, he left present day Chicagoans a legacy – the name of the Streeterville neighborhood and a wildly colorful story.
