The studio was located on Argyle Street in the Uptown neighborhood. At that time there was still quite a bit of open space to film in that neighborhood, and Essanay preferred to shoot outdoors if possible. They also built an indoor studio at that location.
On the day the studio was opened in 1907, the Cubs were in the midst of a magical season, on their way to their first World Series title. The Cubs built one of the greatest dynasties in baseball history, and Essanay was doing the same on Argyle Street.
Anderson was the talent. He was a former vaudeville actor who became famous playing one of the outlaws in the 1903 mega-hit, "The Great Train Robbery".
Essanay quickly became the studio for westerns and comedy. "Bronco Billy" cranked out one western a week for 376 straight weeks. (A few were shot in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, the rest at Essanay locations in Colorado or California.)
Despite Bronco Billy's success, however, the studio really lived and died with another star that came a few years later, Charlie Chaplin. He created maybe his most famous film of all time, "The Tramp", during his Essanay era. Other Essanay Chaplin titles include "The Champion", "The Bank", and "Shanghaied." But most of Chaplin's Essanay work wasn't filmed in Chicago. The only one he shot here was "His New Job."
Essanay studios was only operating in Chicago for eleven years, but in those years, the Cubs were in the World Series three times, and began playing their games in what is now known as Wrigley Field. It was a critical era in Cubs and Chicago history.
