The Spirit Of Black Partridge 
 SeeKiivg Old Fort Dearborn 
 
 Take this home with the compliments of 
 Mayor William Hale Thompson as a souvenir 
 of a pleasant day spent as his guest at RiverviewPaik U 
 
 I~3: 
 
 BBWMMNMIB1
 
 LAWRENCE J. GUTTER 
 
 Collection of Chicogoono 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 AT CHICAGO 
 
 The University Library
 
 Old and The JVezu 
 
 Jhe old Illinois Central passenger station at lake Street 
 in 1665, showing how the tracks- were first built~ 
 on a. trestle work out in the ae. 
 
 7he proposed new Illinois Central passenger depot to be, 
 
 constructed at 1%*!? Street and South Par\ Arenue 
 
 vhich has been built up from the beef of laJtg'Michiqar^. '
 
 Landmarks of Chicago 
 
 One hundred years ago, or within the lifetime of persons yet 
 living, there was no Chicago, that is, there was no settled community 
 of that name, and the place where the great city of Chicago now stands 
 was a wilderness, save only for a lonely fort on the south bank oi 
 the river and a few rude cabins within sight of the fort. 
 
 Go back another hundred years, or two hundred years prior to 
 the present year of nineteen hundred and twenty-two, and there was 
 even less in the way of evidence that civilization had touched this 
 locality. At that time travellers passing by might have noted what 
 appeared to be the remains of an old fort on the bank of the river 
 near the Lake, and paddling their canoes up the sputh branch they 
 might have noted on the bank of the river a few miles back from the 
 Lake the dilapidated remains of a lowly cabin which had been erected 
 there perhaps forty or fifty years prior to that time. 
 
 THE FIRST VISIT OF FATHER MARQUETTE 
 
 On a day late in the summer of 1673, there appeared at the mouth 
 of the river a few white men, accompanied by a number of Indians. 
 They beached their canoes and engaged in ceremonies which unmistak- 
 ably were those of leave-taking. The dominating figure of the party 
 was a slender, young Frenchman in the garb of a Jesuit priest. Every 
 act, gesture and word of his proclaimed him a man of culture and re- 
 finement, and he was treated with the utmost deference and considera- 
 tion by every man in the party, including the rough, hardy French voy- 
 ageurs and the untutored savages. A closer look at this scholarly young 
 churchman, who appeared to be not older than 35, disclosed the fact 
 that he was in the clutches of that dread malady, tuberculosis, or con- 
 sumption as it was then termed; and that he was none other than 
 Father Jacques Marquette, accompanied by Louis Joliet, the famous 
 French trader and explorer, and several French voyageurs, returning to 
 Green Bay from the trip on which they had just explored the Mississippi 
 river as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas. The Indians with 
 them were of the Kaskaskia tribe of the Illinois nation, and had accom- 
 panied the exploring party up the Illinois river from the chief village of 
 the Kaskaskias. When the party again put their canoes into the water, 
 the white men turned north along the shore of the Lake, while the In- 
 dians silently and sorrowfully turned their canoes up the river toward 
 the southwest, evidently to return to their village on the Illinois river 
 located at about the present site of Utica. 
 
 THE FIRST BUILDING ON SITE OF CHICAGO 
 
 A little over one year later, early in December, 1674, several 
 canoes approached from the north along the lake shore and the occu- 
 pants landed on the spct where they had landed the year before. It 
 was Father Marquette and his party on their way from Green Bay back 
 to the village of the Kaskaskias. On account of the severity of the 
 weather, they had been several weeks coming this far, and when they
 
 attempted to put into the little river here, they found it covered with 
 six inches of ice. It was apparent that Father Marquette was a very 
 sick man; too sick, in fact, to continue the journey in that bleak and 
 cold winter. What was to be done? After a consultation among the 
 party, it was decided to build a hut for him and to wait until he got able 
 to travel again. Accordingly, a detachment of the party followed the 
 course of the river inland until they came to a piece of high ground 
 covered with trees. With their axes they made a clearing and felled 
 enough trees to build a log cabin, and when it was finished they ten- 
 derly conveyed the sick man to it. That was the first habitation built 
 for a white man or by white men in the State of Illinois. It was lo- 
 cated on the north bank of the river at a point near where Robey 
 Street, if extended, would cross the west fork of the south branch of 
 the Chicago river. This historic spot, at which civilization first touched 
 in Illinois and in the Mississippi valley, is now marked by a large 
 cross erected there by Mr. Cameron Wylie, in 1905, at the request of 
 the Chicago Historical Society. 
 
 It was six years before another white man ventured into these 
 solitudes, when, in December, 1681, a number of canoes entered the 
 mouth of the river, conveying a party of twenty-five Frenchmen and 
 about as many Indians. The party was led by the Chevalier Robert 
 de LaSalle and his faithful companion, Henri de Tonti. They were 
 on their way to explore the Mississippi river to its mouth. They 
 passed the lonely cabin erected for Father Marquette, crossed the 
 divide between the Chicago river and the Desplaines river, placed their 
 canoes in the latter river and glided down to the Illinois, on to the 
 Mississippi, and on and on until they came to the salt water of the 
 Gulf of Mexico, where, at the mouth of the great Father of Waters, 
 LaSalle, on April 9, 1682, erected a cross, planted the banner of 
 France, claimed all of the territory drained by the great river for the 
 kingdom of France, and named it Louisiana in honor of the reigning 
 monarch, King Louis XIV. 
 
 UNNAMED FRENCH FORT BUILT HERE IN 1682-3 
 
 In about one year from the time that LaSalle and his party passed 
 this way on their famous voyage of discovery, a couple of canoes came 
 down the little river from the direction in which LaSalle had departed, 
 and two of the men of his former party got out. After a brief survey 
 of the surroundings they marked a location and erected a small fort 
 with heavy logs which they could easily drag over the snow. When 
 it was completed the men occupied it as though they intended to make 
 it their permanent abiding place, but they hastened away a few months 
 later to join their friends at Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock. This little 
 structure, built to guard the portage from the Chicago river to the 
 Desplaines, although in itself insignificant, was an integral part of a 
 great scheme which LaSalle had conceived of erecting a chain of 
 French forts to extend from the mouth of the St. Lawrence river, 
 around the Great Lakes, down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers to 
 the Gulf of Mexico, thus preparing to maintain a through waterway 
 from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and to defend 
 the claim of France to all the vast territory which these forts would 
 guard. One of these forts, named Fort St. Louis, in honor of the King, 
 was erected on the top of Starved Rock on the Illinois river. That was 
 the temporary headquarters of LaSalle, and it was from that fort that 
 he sent a detachment late in 1682 or early in 1683 to build the little 
 fort here at the mouth of the river.
 
 HOW CHICAGO GOT ITS NAME 
 
 The locality in the immediate neighborhood of the fort was low 
 and swampy, and the most common vegetation of the vicinity was the 
 wild onion, which, at certain seasons of the year, gave forth a rank 
 and putrid odor. There is no definite proof that the little river or the 
 locality were at that time considered important enough to have a name 
 to designate them, but since our city has become world famous, the 
 claim has been advanced that our name Chicago was derived from an 
 Indian word meaning "a bad smell," perpetuating the memory of the 
 wild onions. Another tradition is to the effect that the name was 
 derived from a similar Indian word signifying a man particularly brave 
 and strong. This theory is supported by the fact that there was a 
 Chief of the Illinois Indians named Chicago, but it is probable that 
 he was named after the locality. 
 
 Another account of how Chicago got its name, which is more logi- 
 cal if true, and vastly more acceptable, will be found in the Remini- 
 scences of Early Chicago, by Edwin O. Gale, in which he quotes from 
 a letter which the Chevalier, Robert de LaSalle, is supposed to have 
 written back to a friend in France concerning LaSalle's explorations in 
 this vicinity. Unfortunately, the letter referred to cannot be located, 
 but it was quoted by Mr. Gale as follows: 
 
 "After many toils I came to' the head of the great Lake and rested 
 for some days on the bank of a river, of feeble current, now flowing 
 into the lake, but which occupies the course that formerly the waters 
 of these great lakes took as they flowed southward to the Mississippi 
 river. This is the lowest point on the divide between the two great 
 valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi. The boundless regions 
 of the west must send their products to the east through this point. 
 This will be the gate of empire, this the seat of commerce. Every- 
 thing invites to action. The typical man who will grow up here must be 
 an enterprising man. Each day as he rises he will exclaim, '1 act, I move 
 I push,' and there will be spread before him a boundless horizon and 
 illimitable field of activity. A limitless expanse of plain is here to 
 the east water and at all other points land. If I were to give this 
 place a name, 1 would derive it from the nature of the place and the 
 nature of the man who will occupy this place; ago, I act; circum, all 
 round Circago." . . 
 
 Those who maintain that LaSalle thus gave us our name explain 
 that the Indians who heard it from his lips, not being able to pronounce 
 it in its original Latin form, rendered it as it might nearest sound in 
 their own language, She-cau-go, and that it was finally settled into its 
 present form, Chicago. So far as the writer has been able to ascer- 
 tain there was no mention of Che-cau-gau, under that or any similar 
 name, prior to the first visit of LaSalle to this vicinity. Its first men- 
 tion occured in Father Hennepin's account of LaSalle's expedition to 
 the Illinois river in 1680. This fact lends color to the theory that 
 the Indians had adopted LaSalle's name for the locality; and this 
 theory is further strengthened by the fact that those versed in Indian 
 lore and language cannot agree as to the Indian origin of the name 
 nor as to its meaning. 
 
 WARRING INDIAN NATIONS DELAY WHITE SETTLEMENT 
 
 The building of the little hut for Father Marquette and the erection 
 of the unpretentious fort near the mouth of the Chicago river con- 
 stituted the only improvements or additions to the landscape made by 
 the early French explorers, and in the course of the years following 
 these fell into rapid decay through disuse. Another hundred years 
 were to pass before any attempt would be made permanently to settle 
 the plain around the mouth of the Chicago river. Although all the 
 trails of discovery and exploration were from the north, yet permanent
 
 ettlements were made in southern Illinois a full century before they 
 were here. This was a result of feuds and conflicts between the differ- 
 ent Indian tribes and nations. The valley of the Illinois river was 
 inhabited by tribes of the Illinois Indians when it was first visited by 
 Marquette and Joliet. In fact, it was this circumstance which gave the 
 river its name. Away to the east, there dwelt a savage, war-like 
 aggregation of Indians called the Iroquois. They were unrelenting 
 foes of the Illinois, and would swoop down on the latter from time 
 to time, until the Illinois were threatened -with extinction. And so it 
 was that the early French explorers were welcomed to the Illinois 
 country because the Indians here saw in them powerful protectors 
 against the dreaded raids of the Iroquois; and it was to protect the 
 friendly Illinois that LaSalle erected Fort Crevecoeur, near the present 
 site of Peoria, in 1679, and Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock late in 
 the year 1682. 
 
 These unsuccessful attempts to establish settlements on the northern 
 Illinois river were abandoned about 1 700, and the settlements moved to 
 southern Illinois, the first of which was established at Kaskaskia, which 
 later became the first capital of Illinois. 
 
 CAHOKIA COURTHOUSE, 200 YEARS OLD, NOW 
 IN JACKSON PARK 
 
 Cahokia was the second permanent French settlement established 
 in Illinois, and was named for the Cahokia Indians, a tribe of the 
 Illinois nation which dwelt in that vicinity. It was at Cahokia, in 1716, 
 that the first public building -was erected. It was used as a courthouse, 
 a schoolhouse, and for other public purposes. It was brought to Chi- 
 cago, in November, 1906, and erected on its present location by the 
 Chicago Historical Society, where it may be seen now on the Wooded 
 Island in Jackson Park, just as it stood in old Cahokia two hundred years 
 ago. 
 
 With the abandonment of Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock in I 722 
 the Chicago portage was abandoned, and thereafter for about a hundred 
 years commerce between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river valley 
 was by way of the Maumee River to the present site of Fort Wayne, 
 Indiana, thence overland to the present site of LaFayette, Indiana, 
 thence down the Wabash into the Ohio and on to the Mississippi. 
 
 "FIRST 'WHITE* SETTLER IN CHICAGO WAS A NEGRO" 
 
 After the removal of the French to southern Illinois about 1700, 
 nothing worthy of note seems to have happened at the Chicago river 
 until July 4, 1779, on which date the British commander at Mackinac 
 recorded the fact that "Baptiste Point de Saible, a handsome negro, 
 well educated, settled at Eschikagou, and is much in the French inter- 
 est." De Saible was a native of Santo Domingo. His name being un- 
 doubtedly of French origin, considered in connection with the meager 
 details of his biography, suggests that his father was a French trader 
 and adventurer and his mother a native negress of Santo Domingo. 
 His cabin was on the north bank of the Chicago river near the north 
 end of the present Michigan Avenue bridge. In 1 796, De Saible sold 
 his cabin to a French trader, Pierre Le Mai (one of four who settled 
 here temporarily at the time), and returned to Peoria, where he died 
 soon after. Thus it happened, as has been humorously stated, that 
 "the first white settler in Chicago was a negro."
 
 THIS LOCALITY DESIGNATED SITE FOR FORT 
 
 When the government of the United States, under the Constitution, 
 was established in 1 789, steps were taken immediately to establish civil 
 government in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. As might 
 be expected, trouble developed between the new settlers and the Indians 
 who occupied this territory. A military expedition led by General An- 
 thony Wayne of revolutionary fame awed the Indians into apparent 
 submission. In August, 1795, at Greenville, Ohio, a treaty was made 
 between General Wayne and certain Indian chiefs who were supposed 
 to represent and speak for all the Indians in the territory northwest of 
 the Ohio River. This original treaty of Greenville is now in the pos- 
 session of the Chicago Historical Society. Under it the United States 
 acquired title to several pieces and parcels of land in different parts of 
 the territory to be used for the purpose of establishing military posts. 
 One of these pieces was described as follows: "One piece of land six 
 miles square at the mouth of the Chicago River, emptying into the 
 southwest end of Lake Michigan where a fort formerly stood." (This 
 reference is to the Fort erected in 1683 by two men of LaSalle's party 
 sent from Fort St. Louis.) 
 
 FORT DEARBORN ERECTED IN 1803-4 
 
 In accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Greenville, a 
 fort was erected in 1803-4 near the mouth of the Chicago River by a 
 company of United States soldiers under command of Captain John 
 Whistler, and was named Fort Dearborn in honor of General Henry 
 Dearborn, a soldier of the Revolutionary War, then Secretary of War 
 in the cabinet of President Thomas Jefferson. At the time Fort Dear- 
 born was erected there was but one building in this vicinity, and that 
 was the old cabin of Jean Baptiste Point de Saible, occupied at that 
 time by the French trader, Pierre Le Mai, and his Indian wife. 
 
 With the erection of the fort, and the assurance of protection which 
 it seemed to guarantee, came the vanguard of the immigrants, who, in 
 another generation were to settle the Chicago portage. In 1 804, the 
 year in which the fort was completed, appeared the first permanent 
 white settler, John Kinzie, with his family. Kinzie bought the cabin 
 of Pierre Le Mai which had been originally occupied by Jean Baptiste 
 Pointe de Saible. Soon after their arrival the Kinzie fireside was aug- 
 mented by the addition of a daughter, Ellen Marion Kinzie, the first 
 white child born on the site of our city. 
 
 At the time the fort was built there was nothing to attract settlers 
 except the opportunity the place afforded for trade with the Indians. 
 This is indicated by the fact that an Indian trading post was erected 
 outside the palisades of the fort and some distance west of it, at about 
 the present intersection of Clark and Lake Streets. This trading post 
 was purposely removed from the fort because it was not thought wise 
 to allow the Indians inside the fortification. 
 
 INDIANS ENLISTED IN WAR ON COLONISTS 
 
 As we have seen, the Indians were on very friendly terms with the 
 French, and generally fought on the side of the French in any alter- 
 cations between the French and the English. The Indians also resented 
 the introduction of agriculture by the English colonists because it threat- 
 ened destruction of their vast huating grounds. After the French had 
 been driven out, about 1 760, the British took advantage of the hostile 
 attitude of the Indians toward the colonists in order to array the Indians 
 against them. In pursuance of this policy, the British government for- 
 bade the colonists from settling around the Great Lakes or in the
 
 Mississippi valley, thinking in this way to gain the friendship c' the 
 Indians and to make an alliance with them against the colonists. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War, British commanders sought to per- 
 petuate the strife between the white settlers and the natives by em- 
 ploying the Indians to raid the white settlements, paying them bounties 
 for the scalps of white settlers; and the hatred thus engendered among 
 the Indians by the mother country c. inst her own children naturally 
 outlasted the Revolutionary War; in fact, the resentment thus created 
 lasted as long as the Indian race. 
 
 BRITISH RUTHLESSNESS CONDEMNED BY PRESIDENT MADISON 
 
 The American people were compelled to engage in another war 
 against Great Britain in 1812, in order to prevent England from des- 
 troying our commerce on the high seas. One of the war measures 
 adopted by Great Britain was to instigate the Indians to organize raids 
 against the settlements- of the colonists. President James Madison, in 
 his fourth annual message to Congress, referred to this practice of 
 Great Britain in these words: 
 
 "Whilst the beneficent policy of the United States invariably recom- 
 mended peace and promoted civilization among that wretched portion 
 of the human race (Indian), and was making exertions to dissuade them 
 from taking either side in the war, the enemy has not scrupled to call 
 to 1 his aid their ruthless ferocity, armed with the horrors of those 
 instruments of carnage and torture which are known to spare neither 
 age nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honorable war and 
 against the feelings sacred to humanity, the British commanders can- 
 not resort to a plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of 
 our example. They cannot mitigate it by calling it a self defense 
 against men in arms for it embraces the most shocking butcheries 
 of defenseless families." 
 
 On account of its remoteness the English were able to capture Fort 
 Mackinac on Mackinac Island in the straits between Lake Michigan 
 and Lake Huron, and from this point they directed the Indian hos- 
 tilities on this western frontier, including the lonely little outpost at 
 Fort Dearborn. 
 
 THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE IN 1812 
 
 In the summer of 1812 Fort Dearborn contained a garrison of 
 fifty-eight officers and soldiers. Some of these men had their families 
 with them, numbering altogether twelve women and twenty children. 
 Aside from the fort and the Indian trading post, there were only five 
 buildings in this vicinity, one being the home of John Kinzie, just 
 across the river from the fort. The four other cabins were occupied 
 by white settlers, named Lee, White, Burns and Ouilmette (pronounced 
 Will-met), for whom the city of Wilmette was named. 
 
 Thus in early August, 1812, this little aggregation of pioneers 
 found themselves on the far western frontier of America, surrounded 
 by hundreds of hostile Indian warriors, whose savage inclinations were 
 being encouraged by British officers, and who were only waiting the 
 opportunity and the word to attack. Under these circumstances, the 
 commandant of the fort, Captain Nathan Heald, received an order from 
 General Hull, stationed at Detroit, in supreme command of all the 
 American forces in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois, "to evacuate the 
 fort at Chicago if practicable, and in that event to distribute all the 
 United States property in the fort, or factory, to the Indians in the 
 neighborhood and repair to Fort Wayne." 
 
 Captain Heald insisted upon obeying these orders, although the 
 judgment of the other officers was against the move, regarding it as 
 foolish to trust the little garrison to the mercy of the restless, vindic- 
 tive savages. While the question was being debated, Captain William 
 Wells, an uncle of Mrs. Heald, arrived from Fort Wayne, with a band 
 
 6
 
 of friendly Miami Indians, to urge Captain Heald to hold Fort Dear- 
 born until re-enforcements could be secured. Contrary to all this 
 advice and counsel, Captain Heald determined to follow the instructions 
 from General Hull, and accordingly called a council of the Indians then 
 in the neighborhood of the fort and offered to evacuate the fort and 
 distribute the stores among them if they would furnish a safe escort 
 for the garrison to Fort Wayne. This they promised to do. 
 
 HEROIC POSITION TAKEN BY BLACK PARTRIDGE 
 
 Among the stores was a large quantity of ammunition and many 
 barrels of whisky, the principal articles of trade with the Indians. The 
 junior officers of the fort, realizing what a bad combination fire arms 
 and "firewater" would make with the Indians, prevailed upon Captain 
 Heald not to do this, so the ammunition was thrown into an old well 
 and the whisky into the river. This made the Indians furious, notice 
 of which was brought to Captain Heald by Black Partridge, a Potta- 
 wattomie chief who was present at the signing of the treaty of Green- 
 ville with General ("Mad") Anthony Wayne. Black Partridge had 
 afterward received a medal from the United States government on 
 account of his friendly attitude at that time. He now stated to Cap- 
 tain Heald: 
 
 "Father, I come to deliver up to you the medal I wear. It was 
 given me by the Americans and I have worn it in token of our mutual 
 friendship. But our young men are resolved to imbrue their hands in 
 the blood of the whites. I cannot restrain them and will not wear a 
 token of peace while I am obliged to act as an enemy." 
 
 In spite of this solemn warning, on the morning of August 1 5, 
 Captain Heald marched his little garrison out of the fort in martial 
 array, accompanied by Captain Wells and his band of friendly Indians, 
 and started south along the shore of the lake on the way to Fort Wayne. 
 They had travelled but about a mile and a half when they were attacked 
 by the Indians. In a few minutes, more than half of the troops were 
 killed and the remainder surrendered. Then the Indians wreaked their 
 vengeance on the helpless women and children, one young "brave" 
 murdering twelve of the children. Mrs. Helm, daughter of John Kinzie 
 and wife of Lieutenant Helm, was attacked by another "brave," but 
 she was rescued by the timely interference and aid of Black Partridge, 
 who exposed himself to the wrath of the infuriated warriors in order 
 to save her. Among those killed was Captain Wells, who fought vali- 
 antly until he was stabbed in the back by an Indian warrior. Wells 
 street in our city was named for him. Those who were not killed were 
 distributed among the different tribes as hostages and were later 
 rescued. 
 
 This brutal massacre is supposed to have occurred at a point about 
 where I 8th street, if extended eastward, would cross the Illinois Central 
 Railway. Near this point, at the foot of 18th street, is a landmark of 
 Chicago in the form of a beautiful bronze monument representing Black 
 Partridge saving the life of Mrs. Helm. 
 
 SITE OF OLD FORT DEARBORN 
 
 If the reader will now turn to the picture on the front cover of this 
 little booklet he will note a tall building at each end of the bridge in the 
 middle distance. The bridge is the Michigan Avenue bridge and is 
 the link between the north side and the south side boulevard systems. 
 The tall building to be erected at the left or the south end of the 
 bridge will stand on the site of old Fort Dearborn. The building at 
 the right or the north end of the bridge is about on the location of the 
 old home occupied in turn by De Saible, Le Mai and John Kinzie. The
 
 story of old Fort Dearborn was brielly told on the memorial tablet in 
 the building which until recently occupied the site and which read 
 as follows: 
 
 "This building occupies the site of old Fort Dearborn, which ex- 
 tended a little across Mich. Ave., and somewhat into the river as it 
 now is. The fort was built in 1803 and 4, forming our utmost defense. 
 By order of Gen. Hull it was evacuated Aug. 15, 1812, after its stores 
 and provisions had been distributed among the Indians. Very soon 
 after the Indians attacked and massacred about fifty o'f the troops and 
 a number of citizens, including women and children and next day 
 burned the fort. In 1816 it was rebuilt, but after the Black Hawk 
 War it went into gradual disuse, and in May 1837 was abandoned by 
 the army, but was. occupied by various government officers till 1857, 
 when it was torn down, excepting a single building, which stood upon 
 this site till the great fire of Oct. 9, 1871. At the suggestion of the 
 Chicago Historical So'ciety this' tablet was erected by W. M. Hoyt, 
 Nov., 1880." 
 
 It is assumed that the old tablet or some other suitable marker will 
 be conspicuously displayed in the new building to be erected on the 
 site and thus preserve one of the early landmarks of Chicago. 
 
 The Fort Dearborn massacre in 1812 first invited national attention 
 to this locality. Its importance as a future commercial center had been 
 recognized by the French beginning with Marquette and Joliet; but on 
 account of .the almost continuous, destructive conflicts involving it, first 
 among the Indians, then between the French and English, then between 
 the English and the American colonists, and lastly between the first 
 settlers and the Indians, there had been no time when the location ap- 
 pealed to sober-minded settlers as a place to establish a permanent 
 home or to engage in peaceful commerce. 
 
 HOW CHICAGO WAS LOCATED IN ILLINOIS 
 
 Prior to the admission of Illinois as a state, it was not known, and 
 few seemed to care, whether the territory in which Chicago is situated 
 would be a part of Wisconsin or Illinois, but the surveys up to that 
 time indicated it as properly a part of Wisconsin, the northern bound- 
 ary of Illinois being a line drawn from the extreme south end of Lake 
 Michigan straight west to the Mississippi river. When Illinois was ad- 
 mitted into the Union as a state, in 1818, our territorial Representative 
 in Congress, Judge Nathanial Pope of Kaskaskia, had the resolution 
 of admittance amended so that the boundary was placed at its present 
 location. This act saved the port of Chicago and sixteen of our richest 
 counties to the State of Illinois; and it was from one of these counties 
 that General Grant enlisted in the Civil War. 
 
 CAUSES LEADING TO DEVELOPMENT HERE 
 
 A situation involving the Chicago portage was now presented which 
 was radically different from previous circumstances and conditions. 
 Prior to 1803 the territory west of the Mississippi was foreign territory, 
 belonging to France; but in the same year in which the building of 
 Fort Dearborn was begun, France ceded all of that vast territory to 
 the United States, in that way extending our frontier from the Missis- 
 sippi River to the .Rocky Mountains and annexing to our national do- 
 main one of the most fertile agricultural valleys of the whole world. 
 It became evident immediately that it would not be long before the 
 products of that region would be seeking routes to the eastern sea- 
 board, which was the only market available at that time. That started 
 inquiry as to the best and most convenient water routes. 
 
 Then the calamity at old Fort Dearborn called attention to the 
 Chicago portage, and the prophetic words of Marquette, Joliet, La- 
 Salle, Tonti, Hennepin and other of the early explorers were recalled, 
 to the effect that this is the lowest point on the divide between the
 
 valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi rivers, and that a canal 
 could be constructed here to connect the Great Lakes and the Missis- 
 sippi with less effort than at any other place. 
 
 The immediate future need and feasibility of such a canal was 
 made apparent by the building of the Erie Canal 350 miles through 
 the State of New York from Lake Erie to the Hudson river to provide 
 a waterway from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. With that 
 canal in course of construction (it was completed in 1825), public 
 interest naturally was attracted to a canal project to make a waterway 
 connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river system, 
 thus providing a through water route from the agricultural lands of 
 the Mississippi valley to the Atlantic Ocean. 
 
 EARLY WATERWAY PROJECT TO UNITE LAKE AND RIVERS 
 
 Therefore, it was only natural when Illinois came into the Union, 
 in 1818, that our first governor, Shadrach Bond, in his first message 
 to the Illinois legislature should point out the necessity for the con- 
 struction of a waterway to join Lake Michigan and the Illinois River. 
 It was more necessary at that time than those of the present day can 
 appreciate, because there were then no railroads in the State of Illinois, 
 and all commerce worthy of the name was carried on the waterways. 
 Governor Coles, who succeeded Governor Bond, also strongly urged 
 immediate construction of the canal, with the result that the Legislature 
 appointed a board of commissioners to ascertain what the project would 
 cost, with instructions to report to the next legislature. 
 
 After considering this report, the Legislature in 1825 authorized 
 the incorporation of the "Illinois and Michigan Canal Association," 
 patterned after the New York canal corporation, which was to com- 
 plete the canal within ten years. Daniel P. Cook, for whom Cook 
 County was named and who was then sole member of the lower house 
 of Congress from Illinois, vigorously opposed the plan of allowing a 
 private corporation to build the canal, on the ground that the rich 
 harvest in revenue which it was destined to yield should go into the 
 State Treasury. Cook enthusiastically predicted "that in less than 
 thirty years it would relieve the people from payment of taxes and 
 even leave a surplus to be applied to other work of public utilities." 
 Not being content to stop with mere opposition to the State plan, he 
 placed Chicago and Illinois under everlasting obligation to him by 
 securing the enactment by the Congress of the United States of the 
 Act of March 9, 1827, granting to the State of Illinois "for the pur- 
 pose of aiding her in opening a canal to connect the waters of the 
 Illinois River with those of Lake Michigan," some two hundred thou- 
 sand acres of land to be used by the State Legislature to help pay the 
 cost of construction. 
 
 FULFILLING THE PROPHECY OF FATHER MARQUETTE 
 
 In 1829 the General Assembly enacted legislation looking to the 
 organization of a new Board of Canal Commissioners "to explore, 
 examine, fix and determine the route of the canal," and to provide 
 for financing the undertaking by the sale of land out of that donated 
 by the Federal Government. Under the authority of this legislation 
 surveyors began work immediately to lay out the canal, which was 
 projected to extend from the level of Lake Michigan, over the low 
 divide between the Lake and the DesPlaines river, approximately 1 00 
 miles in a southwesterly direction to the head of navigation in the 
 Illinois river at about the present site of LaSalle. The canal at this 
 end joined the Chicago river at a point within sight of the location of 
 the cabin in which Father Marquette spent the winter of 1674-5. Thus
 
 T 
 
 /Tie cf^t/i/me . . 
 
 from H?c6 T?OH>, fft aout tfre present /ocafcon. 
 
 it appeared in /66S. with JLae. tSficfayan. impinging 
 
 an J7/mot<s Central fr<fin fearing trie. oM ' depct ot 
 -Lae cftceet 
 
 - 
 
 famous ..r&t/hne 
 
 \ Wonderfu
 
 by a striking coincidence his lonely cabin was located at the head of 
 the canal he had advocated, and after a lapse of more than !50 years 
 his dream of a waterway to connect the Illinois river and Lake Mi', hi- 
 gt.n became a reality. 
 
 It is only natural that settlements should spring up immediately at 
 the termini of the canal. Already the Erie canal in New York was a 
 great commercial success, and the shrewd "Yankees" of New York and 
 New England could foresee a rapid development here as a result of 
 the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. This accounts 
 for the fact that Chicago was settled by eastern people, whereas 
 southern Illinois was settled largely from the south. 
 
 JAMES THOMPSON SURVEYS SITE OF CHICAGO IN 1830 
 
 One of the surveyors who worked on the survey of the canal was 
 James Thompson of old Kaskaskia, and it fell to his lot to make the 
 original survey of the site of Chicago. That survey, dated August 4, 
 1830, showed the boundaries of Chicago to be Kinzie street on the 
 north, Madison street on the south, State street on the east, and Des 
 Plaines street on the west, in all less than half a square mile of terri- 
 tory. After surveying the site of Chicago, James Thompson returned 
 to his home in Kaskaskia and there completed a very useful life, being 
 one of a very few men who were actively engaged in the development 
 of both southern Illinois and the northern portion of the state. After 
 his death in 1872 his remains lay for forty-five years in an unmarked 
 grave in old Preston cemetery in Randolph County, not far from Kas- 
 kaskia. This coming to the attention of Mayor William Hale Thompson 
 of Chicago, he urged the City Council to erect a monument to mark 
 the resting place of the man who first surveyed the site of our city. 
 The council not seeing fit to take any action, Mayor Thompson, at his 
 own expense, erected the monument and dedicated it on Memorial 
 Day, 1917. Doctor Otto L. Schmidt, president of the Illinois His- 
 torical Society, who presided on that occasion, referred to this splendid 
 act in the following words: "In reopening these forgotten pages of 
 Illinois history, Mayor Thompson has done a duty for the city of which 
 he is the chief official, a service to the State, and reveals a sacred in- 
 terest in the past that we hope will arouse the latent talents of others 
 to emulate this public-spirited and ideal act." 
 
 ONLY SEVEN WHITE FAMILIES OUTSIDE THE FORT 
 
 At the time of the survey made by James Thompson there were 
 only seven white families here outside of Fort Dearborn, but it was 
 not long then until settlers and speculators began pouring in. Among 
 the first to arrive was Stephen F. Gale, the grandfather of William Hale 
 Thompson, the present Mayor of Chicago. The building of the canal 
 attracted Mr. Gale's attention to the locality, which he observed was 
 right in the path or route which the coming commerce must take in 
 its passage between the east and the boundless regions of the west. 
 Of course, that was in the days of water-borne commerce, but the com- 
 ing of the railroad has only further confirmed his judgment, because it 
 may be noted even now that practically all of the transcontinental 
 railway lines pass through or near Chicago. 
 
 Mr. Gale, whose early home here was on the southeast corner of 
 Washington and Dearborn streets, lived to see Chicago become the 
 home of two million people and the greatest railway and transportation 
 center of the whole world. 
 
 He opened a book store on South Water street near the corner of 
 Clark street, the first exclusive book store in Chicago. In addition to 
 contributing in this way to the intellectual development of the com- 
 
 11
 
 munity, he helped to organize Chicago as a town (August 10, 1833), 
 and was one of a total of twenty-eight who cast their votes five days 
 later for the election of four trustees; helped draft the first city charter 
 and aided in the incorporation of Chicago as a city on March 4, 1837; 
 became the first chief of Chicago's volunteer fire department; and was 
 the first president of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Com- 
 pany. 
 
 THE ILLINOIS AND MICHIGAN CANAL MADE CHICAGO 
 
 Various reasons are given by different authorities for the subse- 
 quent marvelous and unprecedented growth of the city. Professor 
 John Fiske, in his history of the United States, referring to the inven- 
 tion of the locomotive, says: "Chicago was then (1830) a mere village 
 in the wilderness, and on the outskirts of civilization. Along with ether 
 great inventors and inventions it is especially to George Stevenson and 
 the railroad that Chicago owes her wonderful growth." 
 
 The story of the early development of Chicago is well and briefly 
 told in the foot note on page 486 of the HISTORY OF ILLINOIS by 
 Davidson and Stuve, in part as follows: 
 
 "It is a curious fact that the early gro'wth of Chicago was greatly 
 in accord with the progress of the canal. The canal may be said to 
 have made Chicago. When the survey of the site was commenced and 
 platted, by order of the canal co'mmissioners, in 1829, there resided 
 upon its site only about a half dozen families outside the palisades of 
 Fort Dearborn; but with the prospect o'f the inauguration of this great 
 work, population began to pour in freely. The Black Hawk war perhaps 
 checked it a little but with the removal of the Indians, the tide of im- 
 migratio'n was resumed. When, in 1835, the first canal loan of 
 $500,000 was authorized, a new impulse was given to the settlement 
 of the town, and with the additional legislation of January, 1836, her 
 population, swollen to about 4,000, the extraordinary fever for specula- 
 tion in town lots still rife, and the actual commencement of the work, 
 we find the prosperity o'f that period to culminate. Shortly after came 
 the great revulsion of 1837, which, with the collapse of the visionary 
 internal improvement system of the State two and a half years later, 
 would have utterly pro'strated Chicago but for the persistency with 
 which the work on the canal was sustained. As it was her prosperity 
 was checked materially for 7 years." 
 
 Actual work on the canal was begun in 1836. 
 
 THE YEAR 1837 A RED LETTER ONE FOR CHICAGO 
 
 The year 1837 was a red letter year in the calendar of events in 
 Chicago and Illinois. On March 4, 1837, Chicago was incorporated 
 as a city with a population of 4,149; in 1837 the state capitol was 
 removed from Vandalia, its second location, to its third and permanent 
 location at Springfield; in 1837 Elijah P. Lovejoy, one of the leading 
 antislavery advocates, was killed by a mob in Alton, Illinois, thus 
 helping to bring on the "irrepressible conflict" over slavery which was 
 to baptize the nation in blood a quarter of a century later; in 1837 
 the first railroad in the State went into operation in East St. Louis, 
 with horses for motive power; in 1837 the worst financial and com- 
 mercial panic in its history up to that time occurred in the United 
 States; and it was in 1837 that the Illinois Legislature entered on a 
 vast program of public improvements at state expense, which was 
 never carried out, but which came very near bankrupting the state. 
 A part of the program, as laid out, was the appropriation of about 
 six million dollars for the building of railways to furnish the people in 
 the interior needed transportation to the waterways, which were still 
 regarded as the principal means of transportation. One of these roads 
 was the Central Railroad, (afterward the Illinois Central) to be built 
 from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, to the southern 
 terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal at Ottawa, with a branch 
 
 18
 
 from there to the lead mines at Galena. Of the whole program of 
 railroad construction, however, there were only about 25 miles of road 
 actually constructed by the state, and that was on what was called 
 the Northern Cross Railroad from Meredosia to Jacksonville, on which 
 the first locomotive in the Mississippi valley was put in operation 
 in 1838. 
 
 FIRST RAILROAD TOUCHED CHICAGO IN 1850 
 
 After squandering nearly 1 5 millions of dollars, with only a few 
 miles of railroad to show for it, the public improvement craze came to 
 an end within three years from the date of its birth. The worst feature 
 of it was the fact that it retarded sound constructive development in 
 Illinois for ten years, postponing for that long the building of needed 
 railways. In 1850, the Chicago & Galena Railway was finished as far 
 west as Elgin. That -was the first line of railroad built within the present 
 limits of Chicago, and is now the main line of the Chicago & North- 
 western. 
 
 By the year 1848, the State had progressed to such a degree that 
 it had outgrown its first constitution and a new one was adopted, the 
 principal provision of which was a prohibition of any more internal 
 improvements at public expense. In this year another very important 
 event occurred, namely, the Illinois and Michigan canal -was completed, 
 and this revived the demand for railway facilities through which the 
 products of the interior of the state might be shipped to the waterways. 
 This demand finally resulted in the passage by the Congress of the 
 United States, in September 1850, of an Act granting to the State of 
 Illinois nearly three million acres of government lands to aid in building 
 the railroad from the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the 
 southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal. This was the 
 first land grant made by Congress to aid in the building of a railway. 
 
 HOW THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL ACQUIRED THE LAKE FRONT 
 
 An arrangement was made by the General Assembly of Illinois 
 with a private corporation to build the railroad and to take over the 
 land, in return for which the corporation agreed forever to pay into 
 the state treasury seven per cent of the gross income of the railroad 
 each year. It was also agreed that in addition to the Galena branch 
 that there should be a branch to Chicago, although the exact location 
 of the branch was not included in the Act passed by the Legislature. 
 This left it for the railroad company to locate the branch to suit its 
 convenience, which it did in. such a way as to get for the company the 
 choicest land and as much of it as possible. 
 
 The passage of this Act by the General Assembly of Illinois on 
 February -10, 1851, for the building of the Illinois Central Railway, 
 was celebrated in Chicago with great joy and public demonstrations, 
 because it was taken to mean that in this way the commerce of the 
 lower Mississippi valley would come through Chicago. Work on the 
 Chicago "branch," which has since become in fact the main line, was 
 begun in the spring of 1852, and was rapidly constructed, reaching 
 Chicago on September 26, 1856. In this way Chicago's fourth great 
 railway became a reality, it having been preceded, as we have seen, 
 by the Chicago & Northwestern in 1850, and by the Michigan Central 
 and the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern in 1852. 
 
 DEVELOPMENT OF CHICAGO'S WATER SUPPLY 
 
 The thriving little city now began to take on metropolitan airs, and, 
 as is usual in the case of growing communities which are in the transi- 
 tion period from towns or villages to cities, the question of a municipal 
 
 13
 
 waterworks system began to be agitated. In the infancy of Chicago, 
 the water supply of its people was procured from the Lake, either by 
 the people going to the shore and dipping it up and carrying it to their 
 homes and places of business, or, by patronizing some "waterwagon" 
 which conducted a regular business of hauling the water in casks or 
 barrels. Later the city expended nearly one hundred dollars to have 
 a well dug over on the north side of the river, but that did not prove 
 satisfactory. The next water service was by a private corporation 
 called the Chicago Hydraulic Company, which erected a tank 25 feet 
 square, 8 feet in depth, at an elevation of about 75 feet above the 
 ground at about the intersection of Lake Street with Michigan Avenue. 
 The "mains" were logs bored out in the middle and laid end to end. 
 That constituted the water system from 1840 to 1854, when the city 
 government took over the private water company and erected the 
 Chicago Avenue pumping station, which yet remains at Chicago Ave- 
 nue and the Lake Shore Drive as one of the landmarks of early Chicago. 
 From that modest beginning the system has grown by leaps and 
 bounds, the city being hard pressed at times to keep pace with the 
 increasing area of the city and its constantly growing population, until 
 today the city of Chicago maintains ten mammoth pumping stations, 
 fed from water tunnels aggregating 60 miles in length which take in 
 the pure water from far out in the Lake, beyond the zone of probable 
 infection, and conduct it, in volumes equalling the flow of good sized 
 rivers, to the "wells" under the stations, from where .it is pumped 
 through 3,000 miles of water mains, like arteries of the human body, 
 into the homes and buildings of Chicago. Through this vast system, 
 there is distributed every day to the citizens of Chicago 800 million 
 gallons of the best and purest water in the world Nature's bountiful 
 
 gift to our wonderful city at a cost of less per gallon than the cost 
 
 of water distribution in any other large city in the world; and the 
 superiority of our supply is shown in the fact that there is a lower 
 percentage of typhoid fever a-nd other water-borne diseases in Chicago 
 than in any other large city in the world. 
 
 THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 
 
 In 1858, the Republican party of Illinois, then in its infancy, nom- 
 inated Abraham Lincoln as its candidate for the United States Senate 
 against Senator Douglas, whose term expired the following March. 
 In accepting the nomination of the convention, Lincoln delivered his 
 famous speech on the subject, "A House Divided Against Itself Cannot 
 Stand," and in that noted address he argued that the nation could not 
 permanently endure half slave and half free; that it would eventually 
 become one or the other; and that he was for placing slavery in the 
 course of ultimate extinction. 
 
 Chicago was the center of the contest between Lincoln and 
 Douglas. The latter actually lived in Washington, but he maintained 
 a nominal residence in Chicago in order to be identified with the state 
 which he represented in the United States Senate. Senator Douglas 
 was a very able legislator, and did a great deal for Chicago and the 
 State while he represented it in the Senate. When in Chicago he lived 
 at the old Tremont Hotel, and it was there one day, while he was stand- 
 ing in the lobby of the hotel, that a note was presented to him from 
 Abraham Lincoln challenging him to a series of debates on his doctrine 
 of popular sovereignty. The joint debates, seven in all, were held in 
 various towns throughout the state, from Freeport in the north to 
 Jonesboro in the south. 
 
 After the first debate, which was held at Ottawa, Lincoln confided 
 to some friends that he intended to challenge Senator Douglas at their 
 next debate in Freeport, to state whether the people of a territory could 
 exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a state con- 
 
 14
 
 atitution. Lincoln's friends tried to dissuade him from asking the ques- 
 tion, pointing out that Senator Douglas would answer it in the affirma- 
 tive, which would result in the defeat of Lincoln for the senatorship. 
 Lincoln replied to the effect that if Senator Douglas should make that 
 reply, it might secure him re-election as Senator but that it would 
 defeat him for President in 1860. "1 am after larger game," Lincoln 
 said. "The battle of I860 is worth a hundred of this." Douglas won 
 the senatorship, but as Lincoln prophesied, it cost him the presidency, 
 because the south maintained that the institution of slavery was or- 
 dained by Heaven and could not be interferred with by the Federal 
 Government or by any power on earth. 
 
 LINCOLN NOMINATED FOR PRESIDENT IN CHICAGO 
 
 The scene shifts back to Chicago, where the Republican National 
 Convention was called to meet on June 16, 1860. Chicago then had a 
 population in excess of 1 00,000, but there was not a hall in the city 
 large enough to accommodate the crowd which it was anticipated would 
 attend the convention. On a vacant lot at the southeast corner of 
 Lake and Market Streets, where the old Sauganash Inn had formerly 
 stood, a two-story frame structure was hastily erected to serve as the 
 Convention Hall, and was named "The Wigwam," although why it -was 
 so called is not clear. The Convention met, adopted a party platform, 
 and on June 1 8th took up the question of nominating the party candi- 
 date for president. The scholarly William M. Evarts placed in nomi- 
 nation New York's favorite son, William H. Seward. He was followed 
 by Norman B. Judd, republican national committeeman from Illinois, 
 who placed Abraham Lincoln in nomination. Following these were 
 other nominations including Salmon P. Chase and Judge John McLean, 
 both of Ohio, and Edward Bates of Missouri. On the third ballot, 
 Lincoln was nominated and the citizens of Chicago became almost 
 delirious with joy, celebrating the nomination with bands, parades and 
 fireworks. 
 
 DEMOCRATS NOMINATE DOUGLAS 
 
 The Democratic National Convention, held in Baltimore from June 
 18th to 23d, nominated Stephen A. Douglas as its candidate for Presi- 
 dent, but the "Freeport Doctrine" that slavery could be excluded under 
 certain conditions, announced by him in answer to Lincoln's question, 
 was so obnoxious to the south that another national democratic con- 
 vention was held later at Charleston, South Carolina, as a protest against 
 the nomination of Douglas, and this second, convention nominated John 
 C. Breckenridge, an out and out slavery advocate, while still another 
 party nominated John Bell of Tennessee. In the election which fol- 
 lowed, Lincoln secured 180 electoral votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, 
 and Douglas 1 2. 
 
 Before Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, several of the 
 southern states had served notice on the world that they had "seceded" 
 from the Union, and had defied the Federal Government to attempt to 
 exercise national authority within their borders. Senator Douglas now 
 became one of the staunch supporters of Lincoln, and on the floor of 
 the Senate vigorously opposed the right of a state to secede. However, 
 the disastrous end of his ambition to become President had left him 
 broken-hearted, and he died in Chicago on June 3, 1861, less than 
 three months from the time he had hoped to be inaugurated President 
 of the United States. His remains lie buried in this city in Dourjla 1 ? 
 Square, just west of the Illinois Central Railroad, at the foot of 35th 
 street; and a noble monument, the funds for which were secured through 
 public subscriptions, was erected there and dedicated on June 3, 1868, 
 
 16
 
 the anniversary of his death, to the memory of the "Little Giant," as 
 he was fondly called by his supporters and political followers. It has 
 been for fifty years one of the landmarks of Chicago. 
 
 LINCOLN "BELONGS TO THE AGES" 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States 
 on March 4th, 1861. On April 14th following, the Union commander 
 of Fort Sumter in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, was 
 obliged to surrender the fort to a force of rebels who had been bom- 
 barding it since the morning of April 1 2th. From then on for four 
 long and weary years Lincoln guided the ship of state through the 
 perilous waters of the most destructive war known in history up to 
 that time; a war to determine, as Lincoln said, "whether a nation con- 
 ceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
 created equal, could long endure." When the end of the long and 
 terrible voyage was reached, the Union had been saved and four million 
 human beings had been released from the bonds of slavery; although 
 the great Captain who had guided the ship of state lay dead upon the 
 deck! On the 14th of April, 1865, Good Friday and four years to a 
 day from the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln was shot in the 
 back of the head while sitting in a private box in a theater in Wash- 
 ington with a party of friends. He died the following morning at an 
 hour which has since been marked on the watch signs used by jewelers. 
 As he breathed his last, one of his cabinet members devoutly and 
 truthfully said, "Now, he belongs to the ages." 
 
 LAY IN STATE IN CHICAGO 
 
 His great mission, for which he had been raised up by the God of 
 Nations, was finished, and, like the prophets of old, he was gathered 
 unto his fathers. ' As soon as it was announced that his body was to be 
 taken back to Springfield for burial, it seemed that every hamlet be- 
 tween Washington and Springfield craved an opportunity to pay homage 
 to the dead President. In order that as many as possible might do so, 
 it was arranged that a special train should leave Washington on April 
 21, to go by way of Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, Cleve- 
 land, Toledo, Indianapolis and Chicago. His secretary, John Hay, in 
 his life of Lincoln, said: "As the train passed into Ohio, the crowds 
 increased in density, and the public grief seemed intensified at every 
 step westward." The funeral cortege reached Chicago on the morning 
 of May first, and an imposing funeral procession accompanied the 
 nation's dead chief to the County Building, which stood then where the 
 combined City Hall and County Building now stand. Here the body 
 lay in state while thousands upon thousands of grief-stricken people 
 filed past for a last look at the beloved features of the martyred Presi- 
 dent. The spirit of the sad occasion was epitomized in the following 
 expression of sentiment displayed near the casket: "Illinois clasps 
 to her bosom her slain, but glorified son." The body reached Spring- 
 field on the morning of May 3, and was laid to rest May 4, in Oak 
 Ridge Cemetery, where the State erected an imposing monument, in 
 the base of which is a memorial hall where throngs of visitors, the 
 great and the small, vie with each other at that shrine of liberty in 
 paying homage to his memory. 
 
 CHICAGO POPULATION 300,000 IN 1870 
 
 The Federal Census of 1870 gave Chicago a population of nearly 
 300,000. This phenomenal growth in the short space of 40 years 
 beat anything the world had seen up to that time, and it had necea- 
 
 II
 
 sarily been so rapid that it was not very substantial from a material 
 standpoint. Many of the buildings were frame structures which had 
 been erected under great stress to make room for the multitudes con- 
 tinually pouring in. Even in the decade of the Civil War, from 1860 
 to 1870, the population had trebled, going from 100,000 to 300,000. 
 
 If any citizen of Chicago, reading his Sunday paper on October 8, 
 1871, had paused to contemplate conditions in Chicago, he would have 
 been well pleased with the unprecedented development which had 
 occurred. The little town site platted by James Thompson, containing 
 less than half a square mile f territory, had steadily grown until its 
 area was in excess of 35 square miles. On that day it could have been 
 said that Chicago was beyond the experimental stage, well on the way 
 to her destiny as one of the great cities of the world, if not the greatest. 
 
 NEARLY DESTROYED BY FIRE OCTOBER 8, 1871 
 
 On that Sunday evening, a fire started in a barn situated on the 
 premises at the northeast corner of Jefferson and Dekoven streets, such 
 location at that time being practically the southwest corner of the 
 closely settled part of the city. It was such a fire as under ordinary 
 circumstances would have consumed only the one or two barns standing 
 near and would not have excited any comment whatever in the public 
 press the following day. As it 'was, however, there was a steady gale 
 blowing from the southwest which fanned the flames and carried the 
 fire directly toward the heart of the city. The buildings in the path 
 of the flames, between Jefferson street and the river a half mile to the 
 east, were old frame structures which burned like tinder. Under these 
 conditions it was not long until the fire had become a mighty, rushing, 
 roaring furnace which mocked the puny efforts of man to stay it in 
 its course. It crossed the river at Polk street, destroying the bridge, 
 and advanced steadily toward the Chicago Avenue Pumping Station 
 as if it realized that was the only defense against it. When the fire 
 had spent its fury it was discovered that practically the entire district 
 between 12th street and Fullerton Avenue, east of Clinton Street,' to 
 the Lake, had been swept away. It was estimated that 250 lives were 
 lost, 17,500 buildings destroyed, nearly 100,000 people were rendered 
 homeless, and $200,000,000 worth of property destroyed. After the 
 first few days following the fire, Chicago was under military rule, with 
 General Phil. Sheridan in command, to prevent acts of vandalism and 
 lawlessness. 
 
 REBUILDS AND PASSES MILLION MARK BY 1890 
 
 It was in this great adversity that the famous "I WILL" spirit of 
 Chicago was born. The tragedy was of such appalling magnitude that 
 it was seriously questioned on every hand whether the stricken city 
 could recover from it; but the indomitable spirit of progress with which 
 the city had been endowed by its founders now asserted itself stronger 
 than ever. Help came from every quarter, from cities in this country 
 and even from foreign lands. In all, these contributions, together with 
 the help received from the state of Illinois, amounted to about 
 $10,000,000. With this material aid Chicago again took up her onward 
 march; by 1880 our population had passed the half million mark, and 
 in another ten years, 1890, our population again doubled itself, pass- 
 ing the million mark, and taking rank as the city second in size on 
 this continent. 
 
 BECOMES EDUCATIONAL CENTER OF AMERICA 
 
 In 1892, our education system, which makes Chicago the center 
 of higher learning in America, attained its culmination in the opening 
 
 17
 
 of the University of Chicago, a most important landmark of the city, 
 which occupies a beautiful site along the Midway Plaisance, between 
 Washington Park and Jackson Park. Chicago is the leading center of 
 higher education in America, according to the report of the United 
 States Commissioner of Education for 1920-21, which shows that 
 Chicago has six colleges or universities, nine theological schools, eight 
 law schools, six medical schools and three dental schools, a total of 
 thirty-two institutions, or three more than any other city of the United 
 States. 
 
 The first organized public school was built in 1845 on Madison 
 street, on the present site of the Boston store. The building had , 
 eight rooms and a total enrollment of 915. The first public high 
 school, called the Central High School, was erected in 1856 at the 
 corner of Monroe and Halsted streets, showing the tendency of the 
 city at that time to develop toward the west. There is a wealth of 
 material in the subject of our public schools; enough, in fact, to make 
 a comprehensive history in itself. It must suffice, however, to record 
 the fact that from the beginning just described our public school system 
 has grown to be the best in the country, maintaining at present 25 
 high schools, in which 1,688 teachers instruct 50,548 pupils; and 267 
 grade schools with 90 branches in which 8,539 teachers instruct 317,980 
 pupils. In all, there are 10,227 teachers, who are paid $20,435,522.61 
 per year for their services; and the little 8-room building on Madison 
 street, which was opposed by shortsighted citizens as a waste of public 
 funds, has been added to until the real estate owned by the Board of 
 Education of Chicago is valued at more than one hundred million 
 dollars. 
 
 In addition to the regular day schools, conducted for ten months 
 out of each year, the Board maintains evening classes in many of 
 the schools, and daytime classes in large factories throughout the city 
 for the special purpose of furnishing elementary instruction to a large 
 class of growing citizens who would not otherwise be able to secure 
 the fundamentals of an education. When it is realized that a majority 
 of the children of school age in Chicago are of foreign parentage, it 
 will be seen what a comprehensive and practical work of Americani- 
 zation is being done in our schools. President Edwin S. Davis of the 
 Board of Education has truthfully said that the public schools of Chicago 
 constitute a vast melting-pot in which law-abiding and patriotic Amer- 
 ican citizens are being made. 
 
 HOME OF WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION 
 
 In 1876, the one hundredth anniversary of the nation's independ- 
 ence was celebrated by an international exhibition called the Centen- 
 nial Exposition in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence 
 was originally promulgated. It -was financed jointly by the City of 
 Philadelphia, the State of Pennsylvania and the United States. The 
 Exposition was a decided success, many foreign countries being repre- 
 sented by exhibits, and with a total attendance of eight million persons. 
 This success suggested the idea of holding a larger exposition in 1892 
 to commemorate the discovery of America by Columbus in 1492, and 
 at once a keen rivalry developed among New York, Washington, St. 
 Louis, and Chicago for the location. The "I Will' spirit which had 
 raised our wonder city from the ashes of its great fire again asserted 
 itself, with the result that in February, 1890, Congress authorized the 
 holding of the exposition and designated Chicago as the place. 
 
 The site selected for its location was Jackson Park on the shore of 
 Lake Michigan, and the Midway Plaisance, the latter consisting of a 
 strip of land a block in width between 59th and 60th streets and 
 extending one mile from Washington Park to Jackson Park, the entire
 
 area of the park and the Plaisance being 633 acres. In December, 
 1890, President Benjamin Harrison issued an international proclama- 
 tion in 'which he invited "all nations of the earth to take part in the 
 commemoration of an event that is pre-eminent in human history and 
 of lasting interest to mankind." In response to this invitation 52 
 foreign powers officially participated, besides practically every state 
 and territory in the union. 
 
 The main buildings of the exposition covered nearly 150 acres of 
 land, and in addition to these many foreign governments and nearly 
 every state in the union erected buildings for the use of their respective 
 citizens during their visits to the exposition. The Manufacturers and 
 Liberal Arts Building was the largest enclosed structure in the world, 
 covering more than thirty acres of ground. The Central Hall, l,280x 
 380 feet, was open to the roof, a distance of 237.6 feet, without a 
 supporting column. There were eleven acres of skylight and forty 
 carloads of glass in the roof. It required 7,000,000 feet of lumber 
 and five carloads of nails to lay the floor. All the main buildings of 
 the exposition, save the Art Palace, were of frame and stucco con- 
 struction covered with a composition resembling marble, and all painted 
 a dazzling white. 
 
 SOME LANDMARKS STILL REMAIN IN JACKSON PARK 
 
 If those who did not have the great privilege of seeing the Fair 
 would like to gain an idea of the vastness of that most wonderful of 
 all expositions, they should take a trip to Jackson Park where they may 
 observe, still standing in its lonely grandeur, the Art Palace of the 
 Exposition, a substantial brick structure in which was collected and 
 exhibited the products of the genius of man throughout the centuries 
 that had gone before. The present owes it to the past to restore the 
 old building to its pristine glory, to stand as a permanent landmark of 
 our past glories and as a monument to the great "1 will" spirit of the 
 people that could produce an exhibition of its unprecedented grandeur. 
 
 The setting of the great exposition was beautiful beyond compre- 
 hension; by day the sharp contrast between the deep blue of the lake 
 and the dazzling white of the stately buildings made a picture which 
 will never fade in the memory of those who saw it; and by night the 
 place was a veritable fairyland, millions of electric bulbs glowing on 
 the buidings, the Macmonnies electric fountain playing in the lagoon 
 just south of the Art Palace, gondoliers propelling their graceful craft 
 in and out of the network of lagoons and canals, and music coming 
 from many directions. If one wanted to see the -world at a glance, it 
 was only necessary to take a trip down the Midway where one could 
 drop into Old Vienna, an Irish village, the German village, the Streets 
 of Cairo, a Hottentot village, the igloos of the Eskimo or the thatched 
 huts of the South Sea Islanders, around which the natives squatted on 
 their haunches, having a little lunch of raw meat. 
 
 OVER TWENTY-SEVEN MILLION PAID ADMISSIONS 
 
 The great fair, called the World's Columbian Exposition, was a joint 
 venture on the part of th* government of the United States, the State 
 of Illinois and the City of Chicago. There were more than 65,000 
 exhibitors and twenty-seven and one-half million paid admissions. The 
 total expenditures of operation were approximately $ I 2,000,000, and the 
 total receipts approximately $14,000,000. The gates of the Exposition 
 opened to the public May I, 1893, were closed October 30, the same 
 year, and the great "White City" of reality became the "Dream City" to 
 those who had seen it. After the close of the exposition many of the 
 main buildings burned, and most of the others were wrecked and 
 
 19
 
 removed. Of all the buildings which stood on the ground during the 
 exposition, the only ones that now remain are the Art Palace, a replica 
 of the Convent of LaRabida, and the German Building, which was 
 presented to the City of Chicago by Germany, in token of her friend- 
 ship and good will, at the close of the exposition. 
 
 Among the many questions presented by Chicago's wonderful 
 development, and which at times taxed the "1 Will" spirit of Chicago 
 to the utmost of its power and genius, was a very grave one touching 
 the health and the lives of the million people then here, and that was 
 the question of separating our sewage from our drinking water. Since 
 the establishment of the city, its sewerage had been emptied into the 
 Chicago river, which was little more than an arm of the Lake, with no 
 current save when heavy rain on the Chicago plateau would move its 
 stagnant and odorous contents out into the Lake, there to find its way 
 in a diluted form into our water supply. Doctor Lyman E. Cooley, 
 an engineer of international reputation and one of the most profound 
 students of his time on drainage questions, who had been Professor of 
 History in Northwestern University, hit upon the seemingly simple 
 expedient of reversing the flow of the Chicago river, and, by making 
 it "go up hill," cause it to follow the course it did in former ages when 
 it served as a spillway for the Lake into the Illinois river. 
 
 TURNING CHICAGO RIVER "UP-STREAM" 
 
 Under an Act of the Illinois General Assembly, approved May 29, 
 1889, the Chicago Sanitary District was organized and a canal known 
 as the Chicago Drainage Canal was constructed from a point on the 
 Chicago river, at about the location of the cabin built for Father Mar- 
 quette, to the DesPlaines river at Lockport, a distance of 28.05 miles. 
 Through the rock formation of the summit of the elevation between 
 the Lake and the DesPlaines river, the canal was made 1 60 feet wide, 
 with practically perpendicular sides, while in that portion of the canal 
 running through soil formation, the canal was made from 100 to 200 
 feet wide on the bottom, and from 200 to 300 feet wide at the top. 
 The work was begun in 1892, and the canal, the greatest monument to 
 the progress of Chicago, was formally opened January 2, 1900. 
 
 The construction of the main drainage channel removed only the 
 imminent menace to the health of the people of Chicago, because the 
 sewers of Evanston and of other cities and villages immediately north of 
 us, still emptied directly into the Lake, and the great industrial district 
 in the southern portion of the city, known as the Calumet region, still 
 emptied its sewerage into the Lake through the Calumet river. The 
 northern menace has been largely removed by the construction of a 
 canal from Wilmette to the north branch of the Chicago river, and the 
 southern menace will be removed through reversing the flow of the 
 Calumet river so that it will discharge its contents into the Drainage 
 Canal through the Calumet-Sag channel now almost completed from 
 Blue Island to the Sag bridge on the main Canal. With these engin- 
 eering works in operation, Chicago will have the best and purest 
 water supply in the world. 
 
 WILLIAM HALE THOMPSON ENTERS PUBLIC LIFE 
 
 In 1902, an event occurred in Chicago which, while not deemed of 
 great importance at the time, has since proved to be one of the impor- 
 tant elements in the life of our great city. A young man of the name of 
 William Hale Thompson was elected to the Chicago City Council from 
 
 20
 
 
 lending en M<? tT/ffK? <Jtree( tridc/e in /92S.. 
 and iooing' en^rf, M<J picture would gi-eet 
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 to run up full J'o to <spea, and o *r/i-ong cur- 
 rent -mn<r /rorn t/le ae {Ai-ov<jf> tfie rtt-ei- 
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 j ino(J ana ^Mississippi rivers tt> t|u? ffulf of. 
 
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 the old Second Ward. As his name indicated, he was descended from 
 Revolutionary stock, his greatgrandfather, Ebenezer Thompson, having 
 been proscribed by Great Britain and a price placed on his head be- 
 cause he was regarded as one of the leaders of the movement for the 
 independence of the colonies, and for the liberty and freedom of the 
 people here. It was known to the old settlers that he was the favorite 
 grandson of Stephen F. Gale, mentioned heretofore; that his mother, 
 the daughter of Stephen F. Gale, was born in the Gale home just one 
 block distant from the present City Hall; and that it was his grand uncle, 
 Theophilus W. Smith, who was the author of the bill in the Illinois Legis- 
 lature in 1825, the passage of which resulted in the creation of the 
 Illinois and Michigan Canal; it was known to the veterans of the Civil 
 War and to those of the preceding generation that his father, William 
 Hale Thompson, had served as Lieutenant Commander on the flagship 
 of Admiral Farragut, and had fought with that old seadog in every battle 
 in which Farragut fought during the Civil War in order to save the free 
 government established by their forefathers; and they recalled that 
 Thompson, senior, had given proof of his patriotism by making a will 
 when he went into his country's service, leaving his property to his gov- 
 ernment in case of his death, he at that time having no one dependent 
 upon him. Business men of that time remembered Thompson, senior, 
 as a capable business man and the founder of the real estate business on 
 the great west side which still bears his name. Friends of the family like 
 Commodore Ferdinand W. Peck of World's Fair fame, and David W. Clark, 
 long identified -with the development of the west side, remembered Thomp- 
 son, junior, as a boy with a lot of "pep" who voluntarily left the com- 
 forts of a home of wealth and refinement when sixteen years old to 
 take up the rigorous life of a cowboy on trie western cattle ranges. 
 They recalled that the death of his father brought him back to Chicago, 
 in robust young manhood and a successful cattleman with an inde- 
 pendent fortune, to look after his father's estate for his widowed mother. 
 Brimming over with health and strength himself, he wanted the people 
 of his home city to enjoy the same blessing, and at once became the 
 patron and apostle of healthful outdoor recreation and sports. 
 
 STARTS MOVE FOR MUNICIPAL PLAYGROUNDS 
 
 He had not been in the Council long when he introduced an ordi- 
 nance for the establishment of a municipal playground for children to 
 be located at 24th street and Wabash avenue for the use of the chil- 
 dren of that densely populated district. The idea was a new one. 
 Aldermen were accustomed to being asked for public money for almost 
 every conceivable purpose, but they had never seen anybody with the 
 audacity to ask for public funds to establish a PLAYGROUND. It was 
 difficult for the young man to get .anyone to consider the proposition 
 seriously, but he KNEW that he was right, and so he persisted. He 
 invited attention to the fact that there were then in the county jail 
 many boys under the age of 2 1 awaiting trial for murder, and argued 
 that if those boys had been brought up in the wholesome surroundings of 
 a playground with the resulting healthful physical and moral stimula- 
 tion instead of in alleys or dens of iniquity, that most of them might 
 have turned out to be useful citizens rather than outlaws. In his en- 
 thusiasm, he predicted that the playground, if established, would become 
 a pattern, not only for Chicago but for densely populated communties 
 everywhere. 
 
 Accordingly, an appropriation of $1,200 was voted by the Coun- 
 cil, more as a tribute to the persistence and sincerity of the young 
 Alderman than a belief in his project. The playground, which should 
 be set down as one of the important landmarks of Chicago, was 
 established at the corner of Wabash Avenue and 24th Street, and 
 
 22
 
 became an instant success. Other communities came in with requests 
 for playgrounds, until now, no appropriation made by the City Council 
 is more popular than the appropriations for playgrounds. 
 
 CHICAGO LEADS THE WORLD 
 
 They have become a feature of municipal life, not only in Chicago, 
 but throughout the United States, and have been adopted throughout 
 the civilized world. There are 72 small parks and 15 playgrounds 
 under the jurisdiction of the city, and 58 playgrounds under jurisdiction 
 of the Board of Education. In addition to these the State, under dif- 
 ferent agencies, has jurisdiction over 9 large parks and 65 small parks. 
 The total area of these parks and playgrounds is 3569 acres. 
 
 The average daily attendance at the playgrounds is around 150,000. 
 In summer, 1 9 bathing beaches offer recreation and comfort, while in 
 the winter season, hundreds of skating ponds, improvised in every part 
 of the city, give opportunity for the great winter ice sport. The pre- 
 liminary training the youth of Chicago have had on these ponds enabled 
 them to win two consecutive championships in 1921 and 1922 in the 
 intercity contests in which the large northern cities were represented. 
 
 PROMOTER OF PLAY GROUNDS ELECTED MAYOR 
 
 The man who established the first playground, the "Father of the 
 Municipal Playground for Children" has been twice elected Mayor of 
 the City, which shows that the people discriminate in the choice 
 of public officials when they are interested. It was Mayor Thompson's 
 ambition to do something big and constructive in the upbuilding of 
 Chicago, with whose progress his grandfather, his grand uncle, his 
 father and himself had been so intimately associated since the very birth 
 of the city, that led him into public life; and it must now be a source of 
 gratification to him that during his administration as Mayor there has 
 been more constructive development of the city than in all its previous 
 history, both from the material side in the way of remarkable physical 
 improvements, such as the widening of 1 2th street and the building of 
 the boulevard link, shown on the cover of this booklet, and also from the 
 moral side through a great awakening and encouragement of the spirit 
 of civic righteousness. There are those who, for political reasons or 
 personal spite, endeavor to minimize or detract from this record, but the 
 facts are recorded in deeds which words can not efface, and which are 
 easily accessible to the seeker after truth. 
 
 The following are a few of the many constructive achievements of 
 the administration of Mayor Thompson: the peaceful settlement of the 
 great labor strikes of 1915 without the destruction of a dollar in prop- 
 erty or the shedding of a single drop of blood; the building of the 
 "Boulevard Link" and the Michigan Avenue Bridge shown on the front 
 cover; the widening of 12th Street (Roosevelt Road), through which 
 improvements property values in their vicinity were increased hundreds 
 of millions of dollars; the relief of the families of victims of the steam- 
 ship Eastland disaster, through the collection and disbursement in sixty 
 days of $375,000, at an expense of administration of only $500, one- 
 seventh of one per cent; the inauguration of health measures, such as 
 the purification of the water and milk supplies, -which have made Chi- 
 cago the healthiest large city of the world, having the lowest death rate 
 of any, practically free from typhoid fever and other water-borne dis- 
 eases, while deaths from tuberculosis have been reduced from 1 2 per 
 day to 6 per day, and the deaths of babies under one year from one 
 out of every seven to one out of twelve; the establishment of the Chicago 
 Training School for Home Nurses, in which ten thousand women have 
 been instructed in the fundamentals of looking after the sick, thereby 
 
 23
 
 preparing for any epidemic or emergency; the establishment of the 
 Pageant of Progress Exposition as an annual event, conceived by the 
 Mayor to stimulate business and thereby relieve unemployment; the 
 extension of our system of bathing beaches and the increased oppor- 
 tunities for summer recreation which has made Chicago one of the 
 most desirable summer resorts in America; the creation of 600 tem- 
 porary ponds in the winter season to provide opportunity for our great 
 winter sport, ice skating; the protection of the people of Chicago in 
 the enjoyment of their rights and liberties guaranteed in the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, including free speech and peaceful assembly; 
 the annual outings of the school children of Chicago for wholesome 
 recreation and education, attended by more than half a million children 
 last year, and distributing to them, to take to their homes, copies of 
 the United States Constitution, the Farewell Address of President George 
 Washington, and a History of Illinois featuring the life of Abraham 
 Lincoln these are a few of the many things which have made the 
 Thompson administration memorable! 
 
 CHICAGO THE WONDER CITY OF THE WORLD 
 
 Chicago is too big and the task too great to enumerate all the 
 things which make for her greatness. We are the rail-way and com- 
 mercial center of the United States, and, as Mayor Thompson points 
 out, our geographical situation at the head of the world's granary in 
 the Mississippi valley gives us that preeminence, so nothing can take it 
 from us. Lake Michigan assures us a continuous and inexhaustible 
 supply of the best and purest water of any big city in the world. This, 
 with our wonderfully invigorating climate, makes Chicago the healthi- 
 est large city in the world. Our industrial supremacy is assured by 
 these conditions and the further fact that practically at our back door 
 lays the greatest available supply of bituminous coal in the world. It 
 seems, in fact, that there has been a joint effort on the part of the great 
 forces of nature to make this the ideal spot for a great city. 
 
 After all, what is it that makes a city great? Is it not people, men 
 and women of flesh and blood, that really make a city, rather than its 
 streets, its buildings, and its material wealth? Therefore let the past 
 tell its story and the present be judged, and it will be found that inas- 
 much as "by their works ye shall know them," by the same token our 
 wonder city is greater even than it seems to be. 
 
 . Let all of us strive to do our part to make it ever greater!
 
 I LA 5ALLE STREET J 
 
 on. t/(e left <!cf ^Ae Cook. County Court 
 on. Me rtgkt i-s Me Ofd/n^er of Commerce 
 
 <Jatie ^Street a<s at- will appear from r'/Te 
 Trade t^Aen pi-eje-nif- improve ment^ are cornp/eled
 
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