Rather be Chicago lamp-post than St. Louis mayor (1879)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   The famous New York phrase (see archives for "lamppost in New York") is from Chicago?  I'd previously posted from 1886.

   20 February 1879, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, pg. 4, col. 6:
   Certain Illinois legislative junketers passed Sunday in St. Louis at the expense of the State.  Of course they had no business there; but we can almost forgive them all for the remark of one of them, that he "would rather be a lamp-post in Chicago than Mayor of St. Louis."