When the earliest explorers came to Illinois, they found a slow-moving, shallow stream that flowed through the prairie and emptied into Lake Michigan. Frogs, fish, turtles, beavers, and river otters made their home in and around the waterway, which Native Americans used for transport.
The River in Early Chicago History
The Chicago River originally arose in two different branches that merged before they reached Lake Michigan. The North Branch originated in a marshy area. The South Branch started from a place called Mud Lake near the Des Plaines River. The Des Plaines River begins in Wisconsin and flows south till it joins with another river to form the Illinois. The Illinois River in turn empties into the Mississippi River, which is one of North America’s major transportation routes as it flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Because the Chicago River was close enough to the Des Plaines for people to portage canoes, it formed a vital link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. Native Americans such as the Chippewa and Potawatomi used this network of waterways for centuries.
The first Europeans to reach the area around the Chicago River were quick to recognize the value of the location. In 1803, a stockade called Fort Dearborn was built on a bend in the river. This began a sequence of events that would alter the river forever. Fort Dearborn was burned, rebuilt, and eventually abandoned in 1836. By then a town had been established in the area. That town was Chicago.
Transportation continued to lure people to the growing town. The construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which linked Lake Michigan to the Illinois River, brought thousands of Irish workers to Chicago. The construction of a railroad cemented Chicago’s status as a transportation hub. By 1850, the city had nearly 30,000 people.
The Polluted Chicago River Endangers Health
The residents of the burgeoning city dumped sewage and other wastes directly into the Chicago River. The Union Stockyards, built on the south side of Chicago in the 1860s, dumped animal parts and carcasses into the river, further contaminating it. The river carried pollution into Lake Michigan, which was the source of the city’s drinking water. In some years, diseases caused by the foul water killed five percent of Chicago’s population.
In the mid-1800s, the city twice built water intakes deeper into the lake to draw clean water. Each time population growth caused pollution to spread out into the lake past the location of the intakes. The situation came to a crisis in 1885. In that year, a heavy rainstorm caused a massive flow of sewage into the lake. A terrible epidemic of cholera and typhoid occurred, killing more than 90,000 people. In 1889, the City of Chicago created the Chicago Sanitary District to find a way to solve the problem.
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
Engineers built the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to connect the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River. To cause the Chicago River to reverse its flow, the builders progressively deepened the canal as it went west. To prevent too much of Lake Michigan from draining away into the river, they constructed locks to regulate the water flow. In 1909 and 1922, engineers constructed additional canals to help drain sewage from the city’s north and south sides.
The reversal of the Chicago River was one of the largest undertakings of its kind. The American Society of Civil Engineers declared the project one of the seven engineering wonders in the United States.
Sources
Encyclopedia Britannica
Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum
City of Chicago: History of the Chicago River
Ruth Hull Chatlien - After 16 years in the editorial department of educational publisher McDougal Littell, Ruth Hull Chatlien leaped into the freelance ocean ...
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