The growth of Chicago has been remarkable even for American cities. Any resident of four-score years living in 1900 had seen it grow from a settlement of fourteen houses, a frontier military post among the Indians, to a great metropolis, fifth in size among the cities of the world. In 1828 what is now the business centre was fenced in as a pasture; in 1831 the Chicago mail was deposited in a dry-goods box; the tax-levy of 1834 was $48.90, and a well that constituted the city water-works was sunk at a cost of $95.50; in 1843 hogs were barred from the town streets. Such facts impress upon one, as nothing else can, the marvellously rapid growth of the city. In 1830 with a population of less than 100, in 1840 with 4479, the increase by percentages in succeeding decades was as follows: 507.3, 264.6, 173.6, 68.3, 118.6 and 54.4; an increase equivalent to 8.6% annually, compounded. Such a continuous “boom” no other American city has ever known.
History.—The river Chicago (an Indian name of uncertain meaning, but possibly from Ojibwa she-kag-ong, “wild onion place”) was visited by Joliet and Marquette in 1673, and later by La Salle and others. It became a portage route of some importance, used by the French in passing to the lower Illinois country. In 1804 the United States established here Fort Dearborn. In 1812, during the Indian War of Tecumseh, the garrison and settlers, who had abandoned the fort and were retreating toward safety, were attacked and overpowered by the savages at a point now well within the city. The fort was re-established and fitfully occupied until its final abandonment in 1837. When Cook county was organized in 1831, Chicago, then a tiny village, became the seat of justice. It became a town in 1833 and a city in 1837. By that time Chicago was confident of its future. The federal government had begun the improvement of the harbour, and the state had started the Illinois and Michigan canal. There was a federal land-office also, and the land speculator and town promoter had opened a chapter of history more picturesque, albeit sordid, than in any of the old French days. The giant growth of the lake trade had drawn attention before railway connexion was secure with the East in 1852, making progress even more rapid thereafter. During the Civil War a large prison-camp for Confederate prisoners, Camp Douglas, was maintained at Chicago. In 1870 the city had 306,605 inhabitants and was already a commercial centre of immense importance.
In 1871 it suffered a terrible calamity. On the 8th of October a fire broke out near the lumber district on the West Side. Two-thirds of the city’s buildings were wood, and the summer had been excessively dry, while to make conditions worse a high and veering wind fanned the flames. The conflagration leaped the river to the South and finally to the North Side, burned over an area of 31⁄3 sq. m., destroyed 17,450 buildings and property valued at $196,000,000,[22] and rendered almost 100,000 people homeless; 250 lost their lives. The flames actually travelled 2¼ m. in an air-line within 6½ hours. Thousands of persons, fleeing before the flames and fire-brands, sought refuge on the shore and even in the waters of the lake. Robbery, pillage, extortion, orgies and crime added to the general horror. In the South Side the fire was checked on the 9th by the use of gunpowder; in the North (where the water-works were early destroyed) it had extended almost to the prairie when rainfall finally ended its ravages, after about twenty-seven hours of destruction. With the exception of the San Francisco fire of 1906 this was the greatest fire of modern times. A vast system of relief was organized and received generous aid from all parts of the world. The money contributions from the United States and abroad were $4,996,782; of this foreign countries contributed nearly $1,000,000 (England half of this). These funds, which were over and above gifts of food, clothing and supplies, were made to last till the close of 1876. Out of them temporary homes were provided for nearly 40,000 people; barracks and better houses were erected, workmen were supplied with tools, and women with sewing-machines; the sick were cared for and the dead buried; and the poorer classes of Chicago were probably never so comfortable as during the first two or three years after the fire. The rebuilding of the city was accomplished with wonderful rapidity. Work was begun before the cinders were cold. The business district was largely rebuilt within a year, and within three there were hardly scars of the calamity. Wood was barred from a large area (and subsequently from the entire city), and a new Chicago of brick and stone, larger, finer and wealthier, had taken the place of the old. Business and population showed no set-back in their progress. The solidity and permanence of this prosperity were confirmed during the financial panic of 1873, when Chicago banks alone, among those of the large cities of the country, continued steadily to pay out current funds.
In its later history certain special factors stand out, apart from continued commercial progress.
Chicago has been a storm centre of labour troubles, some of them of a specially spectacular character. There were great strikes in the packing industry in 1886, 1894 and 1904. But more noteworthy are the railway strike of 1894 and the unsuccessful teamsters’ strike of 1905. The former began in the works of the Pullman Car Company, and its leader was Eugene Victor Debs (b. 1855). When the contentions of the Pullman employees were taken up by the American Railway Union the strike immediately extended to tremendous proportions. Union men throughout the country refused to handle Pullman cars, and since Pullman cars are almost invariably attached to mail trains the transportation of the United States mail was thus obstructed. Chicago, as the greatest railway centre of the country and the home of the strike, was naturally the seat of the most serious complications. There was much rioting and destruction of property, and the railway service was completely disorganized. President Cleveland, on the ground of preventing obstruction of the mail service, and of protecting other federal interests, ordered a small number of federal troops to Chicago. Those interests were, he contended, menaced by “domestic violence” evidently beyond the control of the state power. Governor Altgeld denied the inability of the state to deal with the difficulty, and entered a strong protest against Federal interference; but he himself did nothing to put down the disorder. Federal troops entered the state, and almost immediately the strike collapsed. The high officials of the Railway Union, for ignoring a court injunction restraining them from interfering with the movement of the mails, were imprisoned for long terms for contempt of court.
Out of a strike in the McCormick works in 1886 there sprang another famous incident in Chicago’s history. The “international” anarchists of Chicago had been organized in “groups” about two years earlier, and were very active. They were advocating a “general strike” for an eight-hour day, and the tense excitement among the labourers of the city, owing to the McCormick strike, induced unusually ultra utterances. There was a riot at the McCormick works on the 3rd of May, in which several men were killed by the police. An anarchist meeting was called for the next day at the Haymarket, a square in Randolph Street, and when the authorities judged that the speeches were too revolutionary to be allowed to continue, the police undertook to disperse the meeting. A bomb was thrown, and many policemen were injured, seven fatally. No person could be proved to have thrown the bomb, or to have been directly implicated in its throwing; but on the ground that they were morally conspirators and accomplices in the killing, because they had repeatedly and publicly advocated such acts against the servants of government, seven anarchists were condemned to death. An application to the United States Supreme Court for a writ of error was unanimously refused.[23]
The four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America was commemorated by a World’s Columbian Exposition held at Chicago. The site was in Jackson Park and the adjoining Midway, and included 686 acres, of which 188 were covered by buildings. On the 21st of October 1892—corresponding to the 12th of October 1492, O.S.—the grounds were formally dedicated, and on the following 1st of May opened to the public, continuing open for six months. The number of paid admissions was 21,500,000; of total admissions 27,539,521. The buildings, planned by a commission of architects—among whom John W. Root and Daniel H. Burnbam of Chicago were responsible for the general scheme—formed a collection of remarkable beauty, to which the grounds, planned by F.L. Olmsted, intersected by lagoons and bordered by the lake, lent an appropriate setting. The entire cost of the fair is variously estimated at from 33 to 43 million dollars, according to the inclusiveness of the estimate; the local cost may be put at $28,151,169. Of this Chicago gave about 10½ millions, in addition to a preparatory house-cleaning that cost 3½ millions; and finally a very small dividend was paid to stockholders. The whole undertaking, carried through with remarkable enterprise, was an artistic and educational triumph of the first order.
Owing to its position Chicago has long been a favourite convention city. Lincoln (1860), Grant (1868), Garfield (1880), Cleveland (1884 and 1892), Harrison (1888), Roosevelt (1904), and Taft (1908) were all nominated here for president; and in addition not a few candidates who were unsuccessful. A national peace jubilee was held here in 1898.
AUTHORITIES.—See the annual reports of city officials, board of trade, park commissions, sanitary board, &c.; A.T. Andreas, History of Chicago (Chicago, 3 vols., 1884-1886); R. Blanchard, Discovery and Conquest of the North-West with the History of Chicago (Chicago, 2 vols., 1898-1903); J. Kirkland, Story of Chicago (Chicago, 1892); issues of the Fergus Historical Series (1876, ff.); T.J. Riley, A Study of the Higher Life of Chicago (Chicago University, doctoral dissertation, 1905); S.E. Sparling, Municipal History and Present Organization of the City of Chicago (University of Wisconsin, doctoral dissertation, Madison, 1898). Periodical literature contains a vast amount of information on Chicago’s progress and conditions that is elsewhere unobtainable; exact references may be obtained in Poole’s Index to Periodical Literature.