Peculiarities of American Cities

by Willard W. Glazier

For four years the place was deserted by the whites, and even the fur traders did not care to visit it. In 1818 two families had established themselves upon the spot. In 1820 some dozen houses represented the future city, and in 1827 a government agent reported the place as a collection of pens and kennels, inhabited by squatters, "a miserable race of men, hardly equal to the Indians." The population numbered seventy in 1830. In 1832 there were six hundred people in the miserable little town. In September, 1833, the United States purchased of the Indians 20,000,000 acres of land in the northwest, the latter pledging themselves to remove twenty days' journey west of the Mississippi. Seven thousand redskins attended the making of this treaty, which was ratified by the chiefs in a large tent on the bank of the river. A year later four thousand Indians returned to receive an annuity of $30,000 worth of goods. The distribution of these goods was the occasion of, first, a fierce scramble, followed by a bloody fight, in which several Indians were killed and others wounded; the scene closing by a wild debauch, so that on the following morning few of the recipients were any better off for the property which had been given them. Similar scenes, with similar results, were enacted in 1835. But that was the last Chicago saw of the red men. In September, a train of forty wagons, each drawn by four oxen, conveyed away on their far westward march the children and effects of the Pottawatomies, while the squaws and braves walked beside them. It took them twenty days to reach the Mississippi, and twenty days longer it took them to attain a point which can now be reached from Chicago in fifteen hours.

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF CHICAGO, FROM THE LAKE SIDE.

In 1827, Major Long, a government agent sent to visit the place, spoke of the site as "affording no inducements to the settler, the whole amount of trade on the lake not exceeding the cargoes of five or six schooners, even at the time when the garrison received its supplies from the Mackinac." In 1833 the tide of immigration began. At the end of that year there were fifty families floundering in the Chicago mud. In 1834 there were nearly two thousand inhabitants of the town, and at the close of 1835 more than three thousand. In 1835-6 Chicago became the headquarters of a great land speculation. Multitudes of towns sprang up in every direction, on paper. The country was wild with excitement. Even eastern capitalists were seized with the mania, and fortunes were made and lost in this wild gambling in prospective cities. The bubble shortly burst, resulting in great business depression. The State was bankrupt, and Chicago languished. But not for long. Turning from the frenzy of speculation, its inhabitants wisely gave their attention to developing legitimate business interests. The United States had, in 1833, spent $30,000 in dredging out the Chicago River, and in the spring of 1834 a most timely freshet had swept away the bar at the mouth of the river, making it accessible for the largest craft. In 1838 a venturesome trader shipped from that port seventy-eight bushels of wheat. In 1839 four thousand bushels were sent. In 1842 the amount of wheat exported arose all at once from forty thousand bushels to nearly six hundred thousand bushels. In 1839 three thousand cattle were driven across the prairies, and sent to the eastern market; and every year thereafter showed a surprising increase. Yet with all this accumulating commerce, the streets of the city were still quagmires, and many a farmer came to grief with his load of grain within what is now city limits. Before there was a railroad begun or a canal finished, Chicago exported two and a quarter millions of bushels of grain in a year, and sent back on the wagons which brought it loads of merchandise.

The Illinois River is connected with the Chicago River, and through that to Lake Michigan, by a canal which enters it at La Salle, ninety-six miles from Chicago. This canal was begun in 1836 and completed in 1848. It gave a fresh impetus to the youthful western town, and established its future prosperity. Connected as it already was with the east by the magnificent lake and river system of our northern borders, this canal opened up communication with the south and west, and made Chicago the portal, so to speak, between the different sections of our country.

In 1849 the first railroad had approached within ten miles of the city. In 1852 direct communication with the east was gained by the completion of the Michigan Central and Michigan Southern railroads, while more than one western railroad was projected, and some of them were in actual progress of construction. To-day, Illinois and its adjoining States are literally gridironed with iron roads, nearly all of which centre at Chicago. In 1857 there were living beside the still stagnant waters of the Chicago River one hundred thousand people.

In 1871 Chicago was the fourth city of the country, claiming a population of 334,000 persons. By a chef d'ouvre of engineering, the waters of the river had been turned backward, and made to carry away its sewage to fertilize the shores of the Illinois and the Mississippi. The streets had been drained, hollow places filled up, and their grade had been gradually raised, until it stood twelve feet higher than at first. Some of the buildings were raised at once to the latest established grade, and others remained as they had been built. The consequence was that the plank sidewalks became a series of stairs, adapting themselves to the buildings which they fronted. The principal streets were paved with stone or with the Nicholson pavement. The triple river was spanned by no less than seventeen drawbridges, while two tunnels afforded uninterrupted travel between the opposite sides. Efficient waterworks had been constructed to provide pure water for the use of the city. The total trade for the year previous to the great fire was estimated at $400,000,000. Its grain trade had reached such enormous proportions that seventeen large elevators, with an aggregate capacity of 11,580,000 bushels were required for its accommodation. Eighteen banks were in operation, with an aggregate capital of $10,000,000 and with nearly $17,000,000 of deposits. The city was beginning to give its attention largely to manufactures, and its lumber trade had grown into something almost fabulous. Miles of lumber yards extended along one of the forks of the river, and its harbor was sometimes choked with arriving lumber vessels. In a single day, three or four years before the fire, a favorable wind blew into port no less than two hundred and eighteen vessels loaded with lumber. One hundred passenger and one hundred and twenty freight trains arrived and departed daily; and seventy-five vessels unloaded and loaded at her wharves every twenty-four hours.

Chicago Redivivus should bear upon her shield a cow rampant. On the evening of the eighth of October, 1871, Mrs. Scully's cow kicked herself into history, and Chicago into ruin and desolation. Chicago is divided by the river and its branches into three different sections, known as the north, south and west sides. The principal business portion of the city is on the south side, and along the margins of the lake and streams. The "burnt district," which even yet the Chicagoan will outline to the visitor with peculiar pride, was confined almost wholly to the south and north sides.

On the evening of October seventh a planing mill had caught fire on the west side, and the conflagration had spread over a territory embracing about twenty acres, destroying a million dollars' worth of property. This fire, terrible as it seemed, probably saved the west side from destruction on that fatal night of the eighth, imposing as it did a broad banner of desolation, when the flames essayed to leap across the river.

BURNING OF CHICAGO. THE WORLD'S GREATEST CONFLAGRATION.