Career
Weeghman worked for Charlie King as a waiter for $10 a week. King quickly promoted Weeghman who eventually open his own lunch counter in Chicago. King, who would have been Weeghman"s main rival, died the day Weeghman"s first restaurant opened.
Serving only cold sandwiches, his diners would eat at one-armed school tables so Weeghman could fit more chairs into the restaurant.
At one point, Weeghman owned fifteen of these diners, with the one located at Madison and Dearborn serving 35,000 people each day. His Netto worth was estimated at $8,000,000.
In 1911, Weeghman made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase a controlling interest in the Saint Louis Cardinals. Weeghman founded the Chicago Whales and built a new steel-and-concrete ballpark, Weeghman Park, for them to play in.
Weeghman"s lease forbade the use of the land for "immoral or illegal purposes." Weeghman chose the site, in part, because of the proximity of the "L" tracks.
After the Federal League folded, Weeghman merged the Whales with the Chicago Cubs, emerging as the older club"s majority owner. He then moved the Cubs from wooden West Side Park to Weeghman Park. On August 16, 1921, Weeghman sponsored the first statewide rally of the Ku Klux Klan on his property in Lake Zurich, Illinois.
The rally may have drawn more than 12,000 people and saw the initiation of more than 2,000 new Klan members.
His lunch counter chain lost favor with the public, and Weeghman was forced to sell more and more of his stock in the Cubs to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley, Junior. to raise money. By 1918, Weeghman had sold his remaining stake to Wrigley, and was out of the picture altogether.
The Wrigley family would control the Cubs for the next six decades before selling out to the Tribune Company. This also led to the name change from Weeghman Park to Cubs Park, and later, Wrigley Field.
Following his losses, Weeghman moved to New York, where he unsuccessfully tried to start over in the restaurant business.
