Page:LA2-NSRW-1-0442.jpg

 had endowed the spot, but had set it in a slough 960 miles across a hostile wilderness from the seaboard. The horrid massacre of Fort Dearborn August 15, 1812, was not followed by peace with the red man for 20 years. After the Black Hawk War (1831), the Indians of northern Illinois were removed to Iowa, and the vast region of fertile prairie behind Chicago was open to settlement. The town was organized in 1833 with 28 voters. In 1837 it was incorporated with a population of 4,497, which was but a fraction of the number that in five years had swarmed through the gateway. In 1848 it had grown to 20,000. It became plain to the least imaginative that if Chicago was to get any great advantage from its position, means must be provided for bringing in the products of the farms and for distributing supplies. It was easier and cheaper for settlers on the streams to load grain and cattle on flat-boats and send them to St. Louis, than to haul loads across Chicago's ten miles of slough. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connecting the Chicago and Illinois Rivers along the old canoe-trail, opened in 1848, extended Chicago's trade a hundred miles westward and taxed its shipping facilities. In the early 50's William B. Ogden overcame incredible financial difficulties, and pushed ten miles of railway (the North-Western) out to the boat-landing on the Desplaines. The first train out found a cargo of grain piled on the bank. From that small beginning of a half century ago Chicago has become the greatest railroad center in the world, the terminal of 36 lines, aggregating a mileage of 91,672 miles, or over 40 per cent. of the total mileage of the United States, with gross revenues of $2,900,000,000.

With a death-rate in the 50's that must wipe out the entire population in 40 years, Chicago undertook the colossal task of pulling itself up to a 20-foot level. For the first time in history four-story brick and stone buildings were hoisted on jack-screws 12 to 14 feet in the air without interrupting business. The sand-bar that turned the river a half mile south to seek an outlet, was used to raise the grade of the streets; the river was cut straight out to the lake; the channel and harbor were deepened; and pumping works on the South Branch reversed the current, drew water from the lake and washed Chicago's sewage into the canal. To-day the city stands 25 feet above lake level. In 1901 the Drainage Canal was opened. It has cost $68,000,000. Supplementary canals to drain the northern and southern sections are under construction. The system is not only to dispose of the sewage and guard the water supply from pollution, but is to provide a ship-canal to connect

the Great Lakes with the Mississippi—a glorified canoe-trail that follows the red man's route. Five tunnels that extend under the lake from two to four miles out give the city a per capita water-supply of 200 gallons a day. The death-rate has been lowered to 13.5 per thousand, the lowest of any great city in the world.



The lesson of wide streets and substantial buildings Chicago had to learn through the most disastrous fire recorded in history. In October of 1871 the city had a population of over 300,000, mostly housed in crowded wooden buildings that had been dried to tinder by a long drought. Starting on the west side of the river, a strong southwest wind hurled brands on bridges and shipping and so across the stream. The business section was wiped out east to the lake and south to Harrison Street. Crossing the main stream, the fire swept the northern division, the finest residence section, to the city-limits. Three and a third square miles were burned over, 17,450 buildings were destroyed, 100,000 people made homeless; and there was a money loss of $200,000,000. Within a year the city had sprung from its ashes and added 50,000 to its population. Its courage, energy and resource amazed an admiring world. In the middle 80's, under pressure of demand for more room in the business section, the first of the steel-frame, fire-proof sky-scrapers, known as the Chicago construction, was erected. The Masonic Temple, the Woman's Temple and the Auditorium are among the earliest of these tower-like structures now covering the greater part of the central business district. In contrast with these are the low, classic outlines of the Public Library, the Art Institute and several bank buildings. The improvement in domestic and church architecture dates from the World's Fair (1893) and the erection of the many, red-gabled, gray-stone buildings of the university quadrangle on the Midway. In this connection too much can scarcely be said for the influence and benefit of the parks, boulevards and uniformly broad avenues. Lincoln Park on the north shore, Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas Parks on the west side and Washington and Jackson in the