About the Author

Chicago native John F. Hogan is a published historian and former broadcast journalist and on-air reporter (WGN-TV/Radio) who has written and produced newscasts and documentaries specializing in politics, government, the courts and the environment. As WGN-TV's environmental editor, he became the first recipient of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Quality Award. His work also has been honored by the Associated Press. Hogan left broadcasting to become director of media relations and employee communications for Commonwealth Edison Company, one of the nation's largest electric utilities. Hogan is the author of Edison's one-hundred-year history, A Spirit Capable, as well as five other Chicago books with The History Press: Chicago Shakedown, Fire Strikes the Chicago Stock Yards, Forgotten Fires of Chicago, The 1937 Chicago Steel Strike and The Great Chicago Beer Riot. He holds a BS in journalism/communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and presently works as a freelance writer and public relations consultant.

Reviews

[John Hogan's] telling of the Water Tower's history reads like the script of a documentary made for Chicago Public Television. By skillfully mixing historical facts with local lore, he takes the reader back to shortly after the Civil War when Chicago was the new frontier, when it was drawing people in who were looking toward a new future and a new fortune. NewCity Lit