How did Chicago change from an outpost in the Midwest to a towering city?

1833, Chicago is a wilderness outpost with only 350 residents, gathered around a small military fortress on the wetland, where the Chicago River flows into Lake Michigan. This place is called Chijiagu by local people, or "the hometown of wild garlic". By the end of this century, this desolate swamp has become a modern metropolis with a population of 6.5438+0.7 million, which is famous for its dense railway network, efficient slaughterhouses, fiery blast furnaces and towering skyscrapers. The rise of Chicago is so sudden and shocking that many observers have come to the conclusion that the rise of Chicago must be doomed by nature or God, which echoes the belief in the inevitability of American expansion and progress in the19th century, the so-called fatalism. For example, at 1880, William Bross, a former lieutenant governor of Illinois, told members of the Chicago Historical Society that "the author of nature chose the location of this great city." 1923, J.Paul Goode, a geographer at the University of Chicago, said in a speech at the Geographical Society of Chicago that geographical location made its growth inevitable. The topic of his speech was "Chicago: City of Destiny".

Nature gives Chicago a vital location advantage: Chicago lies between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River valley, which enables people who work or live there to sail all the way to the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico by boat. But geography alone cannot guarantee the fate of Chicago: the development of Chicago, like many other American cities, also depends on the engineering projects led by * * * and the mastery of our most basic resource-water. From the 1930s of 19 to the 1930s of 1900, legislators, engineers and thousands of long-forgotten laborers created a new man-made geographical environment for Chicago: building canals and sewers, building city streets and even reversing rivers. These immortal engineering achievements, like nature, contributed to the miraculous development of Chicago and provided a successful model for other American cities.

According to the first Europeans who passed through here in 1673, the geographical prospect of Chicago is obvious. Louis Cholette, a furrier, and Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, crossed the Illinois River and the Des Plains River, crossed a short and sometimes muddy land, or Potik River, reached the Chicago River, and then flowed into Lake Michigan. Joliet was surprised by the imperial possibility of this route, because it connected the territory of the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes region in the north. He reported to the French-Canadian Governor that "we can easily go to Florida by boat", as long as we build a canal. Such a canal will connect Quebec with the fertile land of the mainland. Joliet suggested that the governor say that "the establishment of new colonies is of great benefit", thus expanding the scope of his lucrative fur trading business.

The French never built this canal, nor did they realize their imperial vision. However, even if there is no canal, this transportation route is still a vital route for fur traders, although it is often unpleasant. 18 18, Gurdon S.Hubbard, an employee of American fur company, crossed the Chicago River from Lake Michigan and reached the source 6 miles inland. At that time, their boat had to be "loaded with short rollers" ... until it reached the mud lake. "In three days, these people struggled through the port. "Four people stay in the same boat, pushing with a pole, six or eight people are drowning in the mud next to them ... others are busy carrying our goods." These people are surrounded by leeches. Leeches "stick very tightly to the skin." If it is forcibly removed, the leech will break. "

1In the 1930s, inspired by the success of the Erie Canal in new york (1825) and the Erie Canal in Ohio (1832), Illinois officials began to build the Illinois and Michigan canals. Its purpose is to suck the water out of the Chicago River by gravity, thus effectively reversing the flow direction of the river.

When Chicago people built buildings, the city began to develop again, and the sewers in Chesburg flooded the river garbage, which caused new problems. The Chicago River flows directly into Lake Michigan, the city's drinking water source. At first, the amount of sewage was very small, and the lake diluted its pollution effect, as Chesberg calculated. However, when the population of Chicago increased from 654.38+million in 1.860 to 300,000 in 1.870, the amount of feces, chemicals and decaying animal materials entering the waterway doubled. The stench of the river became unbearable, and pollution began to flow into the drinking water of the city.

It's time for more projects. 1865, officials in Chessbourg and * * * decided to adopt an old proposal to control the water pollution in Chicago: dig a deep passage on the canals in Illinois and Michigan. This time, it actually diverted the Chicago River and discharged Chicago's sewage into the canals far away from Lake Michigan. Six years later, on July 187 1 day, crowds of people crowded the riverbank and saw workers cut down a temporary dam separating the river from the canal. Onlookers threw some straws into the river and watched them drift slowly towards the canal, away from drinking water.

Since then, Chicago has been developing, and most of the time, its rivers are flowing backwards. 1900, Chicago Health District, a regional organization, completed a new and deeper sanitary and ship canal, which largely kept the dirty Chicago River away from the lake, even today when the population of metropolitan area has increased to 9.5 million.

The reversal of this river marks a critical moment in Chicago's miraculous rise. This is the result of a series of great engineering projects carefully planned by the state, which have created sewage and drinking water conditions and a route connecting the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin, making Chicago a big industrial city described by Carl Sandberg in 19 14: "Butchers, tool makers, wheat stackers and players all have railway and freight companies, and the history of Chicago confirms an old adage. But the experience of this city also shows that geography is not just a fixed natural fact implied by Bross and Goodall; Geography is also something that people and * * * constantly create and transform, something that flows like water. Chicago's growth model based on water conservancy projects led by * * * was copied by other cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the 20th century. The engineering-led growth history of Chicago and other cities is both an inspiring story and a warning for our time, because climate change requires us to design cities to prevent sea level rise. If geography is fate, the history of Chicago gives us hope, and fate is still partly in our hands.