covers 181.7 square miles. Its lake front is 22 miles, and its frontage on the river 58 miles. It has more than 2,230 miles of streets, mostly broad and well paved. Its water supply is drawn from away out in Lake Michigan, and amounts to a hundred gallons daily for each inhabitant, though the works are capable of furnishing twice that quantity. Twenty-six independent railroad lines enter the city, making it the greatest railroad centre in America. The principal roads are the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fé, Baltimore & Ohio, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City; Chicago & Alton, Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Chicago & Grand Trunk, Chicago & Northern Pacific, Chicago & Northwestern, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis; Illinois Central, Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, Louisville, New Albany & Chicago; Michigan Central, connecting with other Vanderbilt roads; New York, Lake Erie & Western; Northern Pacific, Pennsylvania, Union Pacific, Wabash, and Wisconsin Central.
Nor is Chicago lacking in facilities for transportation by water. Its situation gives it easy access to all the commercial activities of the great lake system; and it has direct water communication by way of the St. Lawrence River with Montreal, and by the Erie Canal and Hudson River with New York. In the year 1890 the arrivals and clearances at Chicago numbered 18,472, aggregating a tonnage of 8,774,154 tons. About 25 per cent. of the entire lake-carrying trade belongs to Chicago.
There is, moreover, connection with the Mississippi River by way of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the annual traffic amounting to about 1,000,000 tons.
In a city of such rapid growth as Chicago, dealing in real estate and the construction of buildings are important departments of business. Thus, in 1890 a total of 11,608 buildings were erected in the city, having a gross frontage of more than fifty miles, and costing $47,322,100. During the same year the transactions in real estate aggregated $227,486,959.
The general business of Chicago can only be stated by the use of figures too vast for human comprehension. No man, for example, can appreciate what “a billion dollars” means. Well, the commerce of Chicago in 1890 amounted to more than that, in fact, to $1,380,000,000. Much of this came from the grain farms of the Northwest, for Chicago is the greatest grain market in the world. According to its Board of Trade reports, the city in the year 1890 received 15,133,971 bushels of barley and shipped 9,470,221; received 81,117,251 bushels of corn and shipped 90,556,109; received 4,358,058 barrels of flour and shipped 4,410,535; received 13,366,699 bushels of wheat and shipped 11,975,276; received 64,430,560 bushels of oats and shipped 70,768,222; received 2,946,720 bushels of rye and shipped 3,280,433; received 6,244,847 bushels of flaxseed and shipped 6,594,581; received 72,102,031 pounds of grass seed and shipped 59,213,035; received 7,663,828 live hogs and shipped 1,985,700; received 77,985 pounds of pork and shipped 392,786; received 147,475,267 pounds of lard and shipped 471,910,128; received 300,198,241 pounds of cured meats and shipped 823,801,460; received 109,704,834 pounds of dressed beef and shipped 964,134,807.
In the same year 2,219,312 head of cattle, and 5,733,082 hogs were slaughtered. Sales of lumber were 2,050,000,000 feet. The breweries produced 2,250,000 barrels of beer. The general jobbing trade aggregated $486,600,000, of which $93,730,000 was in dry goods, groceries coming next with a volume of $56,700,000; boots and shoes, $25,900,00; clothing, $21,500,000; manufactured iron, $5,680,000; tobacco and cigars, $10,850,000; music books and sheet music, $22,000,000; books, stationery, and wall-paper, $25,500,000; pig-iron, $20,035,000; coal, $25,075,000; hardware and cutlery, $17,500,000; liquors, $13,800,000; jewelry, watches and diamonds, $20,400,000, and other lines in smaller proportions.
Nor does this marvellous city lag behind in manufactures. The statistics of 1890 show 3,250 factories, with $190,000,000 capital; 177,000 workmen, $96,200,000 wages, and a total output valued at $538,000,000. The iron industry alone employed 34,000 workmen, who received $18,500,000 in wages.
To meet the needs of this vast volume of business, extensive banking facilities are required. The total of bank clearances in Chicago in 1890 was $4,093,145,904.
Figures are dry reading. But these few statistics are necessary to show what manner of city is this Western metropolis in which the greatest exhibition of the world’s industry is to be held. How the city was selected has already been told. The conditions on which the work was carried forward may be well explained in the words of W. T. Baker, the President of the Local Board of Commissioners: “The Act of Congress, approved April 25th, 1890, providing for the Exposition, states in the preamble that ‘such an exhibition should be of a national and international character, so that not only the people of our Union and this continent, but those of all nations as well can participate.’ And to carry out this intention the Congress provided two agents to do its will. The first is a commission consisting of two Commissioners from each State and Territory in the United States, appointed by the President on the nomination of the Governors of the State and Territories respectively, and eight Commissioners-at-Large appointed by the President. The board so constituted was designated the World’s Columbian Commission. The duties of the Commission relate to exhibits and exhibitors, or, as stated in the act, ‘to prepare a classification of exhibits, determine the plan and scope of the Exposition, appoint all judges and examiners for the Exposition, award all premiums, if any, and generally have charge of all intercourse with exhibitors and representatives of foreign nations.’
“The other agent recognized by the Act of Congress is the World’s Columbian Exposition, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Illinois. This corporation had to do mainly with ways and means, the erection of buildings, the maintenance, protection, and policing of the same, the granting of concessions, the collection and disbursements of all its revenues, and fixing the rules governing the Exposition. It is composed of upward of 28,000 stockholders, and is controlled by a board of forty-five directors. Those directors have been chosen from among the active business men of Chicago, and are every one of them men who have made an honorable success of the pursuits which they have followed in finance, commerce, and manufactures, and are giving their time and their best energies to the success of the Exposition. Their names are many of them known wherever American commerce has been permitted to extend. The Board of Directors is divided into thirteen standing Committees having jurisdiction over the several departments of the commission, and the directory and all expenditures are directed and scrutinized by them as closely as is done in the private affairs of the best managed mercantile establishments.