WGN-AM

Change in ownership

After McCormick died from pneumonia-related complications on April 1, 1955, ownership of WGN-AM-TV, the Chicago Tribune and the News Syndicate Company properties transferred to the McCormick-Patterson Trust, assigned to the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation in the names of the non-familial heirs of McCormick (whose two marriages never produced any children) and familial heirs of Patterson. (The trust was dissolved in January 1975, with a majority of the trust's former beneficiaries, including descendants of the McCormick and Patterson families, owning stock in the restructured Tribune Company entity – which assumed oversight of all properties previously overseen by the trust – afterward.)