Colonel Robert R. McCormick (1880-1955)

Robert R. McCormick led an exciting life. His interests ranged from journalism to fox-hunting to aviation. As editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune for 44 years, he created a media empire that survives today. He built the Tribune Company from a single newspaper to a media giant by creating radio and television stations and building newsprint factories.

This one-time politician became a citizen-soldier, serving in the Illinois National Guard in 1915, and a Colonel in the First Infantry Division during World War I.

He enjoyed the life of a gentleman-farmer, operating the Tribune Experimental Farms in Wheaton and Yorkville, Illinois and influenced the creation of Meigs Field, an airport in Chicago.

He married twice; first to Amy Irwin Adams, who lived at Cantigny until her death in 1939, and later to Maryland Mathison Hooper, with whom he traveled the world.

Upon his death, his will established the Robert R. McCormick Charitable Trust, known today as the McCormick Foundation, which established Cantigny as a public park and created a charitable trust to fund programs serving children, communities, and country.