by Lloyd Thompson

Created on: May 10, 2010

The Murders at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin

As a teen-ager with and a couple of semesters of engineering education at the University of Wisconsin and $7 in his pocket; Frank stepped off the train in Chicago with the determination to become the “Greatest Architect in the world”.

In 1887 as a 20 year old Frank Lloyd Wright became an architect for Adler and Sullivan, builders of the Chicago Auditorium and many important buildings in Chicago.  A year later he married Kitty Tobin, the young daughter of a successful Chicago business man.  He then designed their home in Oak Park, IL.

When he was 26 he opened his own architectural office. He developed a stream of clients who wanted a Wright home.

Twenty one years later, on August 15, 1914 Frank Lloyd Wright and his son were busy painting some decorations on walls of Midway Beer Gardens and entertainment center in Chicago. Mr. Wright went to answer a telephone call. He returned in a state of shock.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mr. Cheney rode the train in a private compartment from Chicago to Spring Green, Wisconsin bonded in a common grief.  Wright was going to bury Mamah, his mistress. Cheney was going to get the bodies of his two children. Wright had an affair with Cheney’s wife, Mamah Brothwick Cheney.  Now she was dead. She and her two children had been murdered. 

Thirty six hours before he had seen them alive and well.

On the train ride to Spring Green, Wright and Cheney had memories that intertwined.  Wright had been living in Oak Park, a western suburb of Chicago with his wife Kitty. He designed a house for Mr Edward Cheney and Mrs. Martha Borthwick ("Mamah") Cheney.

Then Wright and Mamah Cheney had an affair. Mamah and Wright had taken trains to New York and boarded a ship together for Europe. While in Europe Wright worked on a book of his works and Mamah was a teacher.

When Wright returned from Europe and stepped off the train in Chicago a friend met him and took him along the back streets so they would not be seen.  The respected Frank Lloyd Wright found that he and Mamah had been the scandal of the day. Former friends would no longer speak to him. Ladies would cross the street, so they would not need to speak to him. 

  After remodeling their home in Oak Park so Kitty could rent out part of the home; Wright left his wife Kitty and built a home on the family farm south of Spring Green. He called the house Taliesin. Mamah returned from Europe

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