Levi Boone

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Levi Day Boone (born: December 6, 1808 in Kentucky; died: January 24, 1882; buried in Rosehill Cemetery) served as mayor of Chicago, Illinois (1855-1856) on the Know-Nothing Party.

Boone, a great-nephew of Daniel Boone, graduated from the medical school of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky and arrived in Chicago in 1835. He helped organize the Cook County Medical Board and served as the organization's first secretary. Boone had a medical practice with Charles V. Dyer. He was elected the first president of the Chicago Medical Society in 1850.

He was elected mayor on an anti-immigrant platform. Although Boone won, there were claims that the votes of German and Irish immigrants in Bridgeport, which was not yet a part of the city, had not been counted. Boone also claimed that scripture provided the basis for slavery. His party opposed slavery, but on economic grounds, not moral ones.

In his first year in office, he established the first Chicago police force under Luther Nichols. He barred all immigrants from city jobs. He also proposed an ordinance which would close taverns on Sundays and raise the cost of liquor licenses by 2,400%. Many saw this as a means of attacking German immigrants and on April 21, the move sparked the Lager Beer Riot after several tavern owners were arrested for selling beer on a Sunday.

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