Chicago, Illinois

Chicago, Illinois, owes its existence to its location on both the Chicago River and the Great Lakes. From its “discovery,” in 1673, by the French explorers Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, and Louis Jolliet, Chicago developed as a bridge between the natural resources of the North American continent and the vast Atlantic market. Originally, the fur trade encouraged the integration of the Chicago region with the expanding European economy.

Involvement with Europe meant involvement in its politics and wars, especially the French and Indian War, in 1756. After 1763, France lost its North American holdings. Twenty years later, political control of the region passed to the newly created United States. Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, the son of a French fur trader and a black Haitian, came to Chicago in 1781 as the first permanent resident after being imprisoned for antiBritish activities. His cabin, near the mouth of the Chicago River, provided a focus for the local fur trade.

It took the military campaigns of General “Mad” Anthony Wayne to bring effective American rule. In 1791, Wayne's victories ended in the Treaty of Greenville, which granted federal control to the mouth of the Chicago River. The U.S. Army began construction of Fort Dearborn in 1803. By that time, DuSable had sold his cabin to Jean La Lime, who in turn sold it to John Kinzie. Fort Dearborn provided an American military presence in the West and a focal point for trade. The War of 1812 brought about the fort's destruction by Native Americans. The second Fort Dearborn (1816) marked the permanent establishment of American control in the area. A lively society of fur traders evolved alongside the military post. At the same time, Chicago became a focal point for Yankee migration west from New England and upstate New York.

Chartered as a town in 1833, Chicago became four years later a city of roughly 5,000 inhabitants. The Blackhawk War and an aggressive federal policy forced Indian removal by 1837. The Erie Canal (1825) significantly changed and improved Chicago's ties to the East. Merchants gathered and distributed grain, lumber, livestock, and other natural resources while dispensing manufactured products across the American economy.

In 1836, Chicagoans began building their own canal, the Illinoismichigan Canal, which allowed the city to compete with St. Louis for the Western trade. The depressionplagued canal finally opened in 1848. In 1847, the McCormick Reaper Works opened in Chicago and helped to usher in both the industrial and agricultural revolutions in the Midwest. By 1848, the city housed roughly 20,000 inhabitants and looked forward to continued growth.

That same year Chicago entrepreneurs embraced yet another transportation technology, the railroad. The Galenachicago Union Railroad was the first railroad in Chicago. By 1854, Chicago emerged as an important railroad hub. The trade routes that developed as a result of the canals were reinforced and expanded with railroad connections between Eastern cities and Chicago. In turn, Chicago's railroads pushed west and crossed the Mississippi. The city's population and industrial base increased dramatically between 1850 and 1900. The emergence of the meatpacking and steel industries brought about yet another economic phase, the production of goods for national and international distribution.

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