The second city in the United States, with a population approximating
two millions, Chicago, the metropolis of the prairies, seems destined
for unlimited growth. It has absorbed all the outlying towns, and now
embraces nearly two hundred square miles. It has a water-front on Lake
Michigan of twenty-six miles, and its trade constantly grows. It
pushes ahead with boundless energy, attracting the shrewdest men of
the West to take part in its vast and profitable enterprises, and is
in such a complete manner the depot and storehouse for the products
and supplies of goods for the enormous prairie region around it, and
for the entire Northwest, and the country out to the Rocky Mountains
and Pacific Ocean, that other Western cities cannot displace or even
hope to rival it. Yet it is a youthful giant, of quick and marvellous
development, but few of its leading spirits having been born within
its limits, nearly all being attracted thither by its paramount
advantages. The prominent characteristics of Chicago are an
overhanging pall of smoke; streets crowded with quick-moving, busy
people; a vast aggregation of railways, vessels, elevators and traffic
of all kinds; a polyglot population drawn from almost all races; and
an earnest devotion to the almighty dollar. Its name came from the
river, and is of Indian origin, regarded as probably a corruption of
"Cheecagua," the title of a dynasty of chiefs who controlled the
country west and south of Lake Michigan. This also was a word applied
in the Indian dialect to the wild onion growing luxuriantly on the
banks of the river, and they gave a similar name to the thunder which
they believed the voice of the Great Spirit, and to the odorous animal
abounding in the neighborhood that the white man knew as the
"polecat." These were rather incongruous uses for the same word, but
the suggestion has been made that all can be harmonized if Chicago is
interpreted as meaning "strong," the Indians, being poorly supplied
with words, usually selecting the most prominent attribute in giving
names. All these things are in one way or another "strong," and it is
evident that prodigious strength exists in Chicago.
As elsewhere throughout the Northwest, the French missionaries were
here the earliest explorers, Father Marquette coming in 1673, and
afterwards Hennepin, Joliet and La Salle, whose names are so
numerously reproduced in the Northwestern States. The French built at
the mouth of the river Fort Chicagou, for a trading-post, and held it
until the English conquered Canada. When the earlier American settlers
ventured to this frontier, the Indians on Lake Michigan were the
Pottawatomies, and were hostile. The Government in 1804 built Fort
Dearborn, near the mouth of the Chicago River, to control them. These
Indians joined in the crusade of the Prophet and Tecumseh, and when
the war with England began in 1812, attacked and captured the fort,
massacring the garrison. The post was subsequently re-established, and
the Indians were ultimately removed west of the Mississippi. Not long
afterwards it was said the first purchase of the site of Chicago took
place, wherein a large part of the land now occupied was sold for a
pair of boots. When the town plot was originally surveyed, twelve
families were there in addition to the garrison of Fort Dearborn, and
in 1831 it had one hundred people. In 1833 the town government was
organized, and it had five hundred and fifty inhabitants and one
hundred and seventy-five buildings. Five trustees then ruled Chicago,
and collected $49 for the first year's taxes. Collis P. Huntington,
the Pacific Railway manager, says that in 1835, being possessed of a
good constitution and a pair of mules, but little else, he was out
that way prospecting, and found at Chicago nothing but a swamp and a
few destitute farmers, all anxious to move. One of these farmers came
to him with the deed of his farm of two thousand acres, and offered to
trade it for his pair of mules. Huntington adds: "I was not very
favorably impressed with the settlement and declined his offer, and
finally continued my travel west, and that farm is to-day the business
centre of Chicago."
In 1837 Chicago got its first city charter, and it then had about
forty-two hundred people. The rapid growth since has been
unparalleled, especially when, after 1850, its commercial enterprise
began attracting wide attention, the population then being about
thirty thousand. In 1855, to get above the swamp and improve the
drainage, the level of the entire city was raised seven feet, huge
buildings being elevated bodily while business was progressing, an
enterprise mainly accomplished by the ingenious devices which first
gave prominence to the late George M. Pullman. The population almost
quadrupled and its trade increased tenfold in the decade 1850-60, and
in 1870 the population was over three hundred thousand, and it had
become a leading American city. Yet Chicago has had terrible setbacks
in its wonderful career, the most awful being the fire in October,
1871, the greatest of modern times, which raged for three days, burned
over a surface of nearly four square miles and until practically
nothing remained in the district to devour, destroyed eighteen
thousand buildings, two hundred lives, and property valued at
$200,000,000, leaving a hundred thousand people homeless--a calamity
that excited the sympathies of the world, which gave relief
contributions aggregating $7,000,000. Yet while the embers were
smoking, this enterprising people set to work to rebuild their city
with a will and a progress which caused almost as much amazement as
the original catastrophe. The recovery was complete; the city which
had been of wood was rebuilt of brick and stone and iron and steel,
and its progress since has developed an energy not before equalled. It
has been beautified by grand parks and boulevards, and by the
construction of palatial residences and business blocks, and of
enormous office buildings, the tall "sky-scrapers" having been first
invented and built in Chicago. In 1893 the World's Columbian
Exhibition, to celebrate the discovery of America, was held at Chicago
on a vast scale and with remarkable success. The city has long been,
also, a favorite meeting-place for the great political Conventions
nominating candidates for President and Vice-President of the United
States, its large hotel capacity and immense halls giving advantages
for these enormous assemblages.