1977
The first Chicago Marathon is run
About 4,200 runners start the Mayor Daley Marathon, the race that grew into the Chicago Marathon, one of the largest marathons in the world.
On September 25, 1977, about 4,200 runners lined up for the first edition of the modern Chicago Marathon. It went by another name that day: the Mayor Daley Marathon. Of those who started, 2,128 reached the finish. The race had no sponsors at all. Its founder, Lee Flaherty, paid the bills himself.
Chicago was not new to the distance. An earlier series of annual marathons began on September 23, 1905, and drew large crowds until the early 1920s, when the event faded away. Interest in running returned in the 1960s and 1970s, and in 1976 a group of local runners met at the YMCA on LaSalle Street to plan a new race. The success of the New York City Marathon that same year gave Chicago a model, and a rival.
Getting permission was not simple. Ed Kelly, superintendent of the Chicago Park District, refused to let the runners use the parks or the Lake Michigan lakefront. Flaherty won the support of Mayor Richard J. Daley. After Daley died, his successor, Michael Bilandic, approved the race and brought Kelly on board. Bilandic, a runner himself, handed out medals at the finish with his wife.
Why it matters
The race grew quickly. Beatrice Foods became its first sponsor in 1979, and by 1982 the prize money was large enough to attract world-class athletes. In 1984 the purse reached $250,000, more than New York offered. The flat, fast course helped runners chase records. In 2001, after Catherine Ndereba set a women’s world record there, both the men’s and women’s world records had been set in Chicago.
The Chicago Marathon is one of the World Marathon Majors and admits around 50,000 runners. The course starts and ends in Grant Park and winds through 29 of the city’s neighborhoods. In 2024, World Athletics honored the race with its Heritage Plaque for its contribution to the history of road running.
Did you know?
The race has skipped only two years since 1977. In 1987, after its sponsor pulled out, organizers held only a half marathon, and in 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic forced a cancellation.
