, which at its peak in the early 20th century employed over 40,000 workers Originally,
Cicero Township occupied an area six times the size of its current territory. The cities of
Oak Park and
Berwyn were incorporated from portions of Cicero Township, and other portions, such as
Austin, were annexed into the city of
Chicago. By 1911, an
aerodrome called the Cicero Flying Field had been established as the town's first aircraft facility of any type, located on a roughly square plot of land about per side, on then-open ground at by the Aero Club of Illinois, founded on February 10, 1910. Famous pilots like
Hans-Joachim Buddecke,
Lincoln Beachey,
Chance M. Vought and others flew from there at various times during the
"pioneer era" of aviation in the United States shortly before the nation's involvement in
World War I; the field closed in mid-April 1916. After building his criminal empire in Chicago,
Al Capone moved to Cicero to escape the reach of Chicago police. The
1924 Cicero municipal elections were particularly violent due to gang-related efforts to secure a favorable election result. On July 11–12, 1951, a
race riot erupted in Cicero when a white mob of around 4,000 attacked and burned an apartment building at 6139 W. 19th Street that housed the
African-American family of Harvey Clark Jr., a
Chicago Transit Authority bus driver who had relocated to the all-white city. Governor
Adlai E. Stevenson was forced to call out the
Illinois National Guard. The Clarks moved away and the building had to be boarded up. The Cicero riot received worldwide condemnation. Cicero was taken up and abandoned several times as site for a
civil rights march in the mid-1960s. Cicero had a
sundown town policy prohibiting African Americans from living in the city. The
American Friends Service Committee,
Martin Luther King Jr., and many affiliated organizations, including churches, were conducting marches against housing and school
de facto segregation and inequality in Chicago and several suburbs, but the leaders feared an overly violent response in
Chicago Lawn and Cicero. Eventually, a substantial march (met by catcalls, flying bottles and bricks) was conducted in Chicago Lawn, but only a splinter group, led by
Jesse Jackson, marched in Cicero. The marches in the Chicago suburbs helped galvanize support for the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1968, extending federal prohibitions against discrimination to private housing. The act also created the
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's
Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, which enforces the law. The 1980s and 1990s saw a heavy influx of
Hispanic (mostly
Mexican and
Central American) residents to Cicero. Once considered mainly a
Czech or
Bohemian town, most of the European-style restaurants and shops on 22nd Street (now
Cermak Road) have been replaced by Spanish-titled businesses. In addition, Cicero has a small black community. Cicero has seen a revival in its commercial sector, with many new mini-malls and large retail stores. New condominiums are also being built in the city. Cicero has long had a reputation of government scandal. In 2002, Republican Town President
Betty Loren-Maltese was sent to
federal prison in California for misappropriating $12 million in funds. ==Geography==