History

Two French fur traders are believed to have visited the site of Chicago in 1654. French explorers followed later, including Joliet, Marquette, LaSalle, and Hennepin. LaSalle predicted the site would be the gate of empire the seat of commerce. A French fort and trading post were established in Chicago in 1685. The territory became British under the Treaty of Paris in 1763. In 1774, under the Quebec Act, it became part of the Province of Quebec. The first permanent settler was probably Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a trader from Haiti. Du Sable, the son of a French seaman and an African-born slave, arrived about 1777. He built a cabin on the north bank of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan and established a trading post. The United States took possession of the territory in 1783. In 1795 Indians ceded six square miles (15.5 km2) of land for a fort at the mouth of the river. John Kinzie, a Canadian-born Scotsman, bought Du Sables trading post in 1803. In 1804, Fort Dearborn was erected on the south bank of the river near the lake. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, the garrison was ordered to evacuate the fort. While doing so, on August 15, 1812, it was attacked by Indians. Only Kinzie, his family, and a few others escaped the massacre that followed. The fort was burned, but was rebuilt in 1816.

Chicago was incorporated as a town on August 5, 1833. It had a population of about 350 in an area of less than one-half square mile (1.2 km2). Large-scale settlement did not begin until after the Indian defeat in the Black Hawk War of 1832 and cession of Indian lands to the United States government, 1832-33. The second Fort Dearborn was abandoned in 1837. Chicago was chartered as a city in 1837. It had 4,170 inhabitants and encompassed some 10 square miles (26 km2). The citys growth and prosperity was aided by completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848), which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi via the Illinois River, and by the coming of the railroads. A railway between Chicago and Galena, Illinois, a thriving Mississippi port, was finished in 1848. By 1852, railways from the east had entered the city. In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was nominated for the Presidency at the Republican Convention in Chicago, by then a major transportation and commercial center of some 112,000 people.

On October 8, 1871, fire broke out on the Southwest Side and swept through the city. Legend holds that the fire began when a cow belonging to Mrs. Patrick OLeary kicked over a lantern. Fanned by high winds, the fire ignited wooden buildings in the area and soon raged out of control. When rain finally put out the blaze more than 24 hours later, four square miles (10 km2), including the citys main business district, had been destroyed. More than 300 persons were killed, and an estimated 100,000 were left homeless. Relief operations were quickly established as goods and money poured in from around the world. Rebuilding of the devastated city began almost immediately, and by 1875 few traces of the damage remained.

United States troops were called into Chicago in 1877 to put down riots during a railway strike. The Haymarket Riot, a battle between police and striking workmen, took place in 1886. In 1894, federal troops were called in to break the Pullman Strike.

Architects of the Chicago school, discussed earlier in this article (subtitle Interesting Places: Prominent Buildings), became active beginning in the 1880s. William Le Baron Jenneys 10-story Home Insurance Building (1885) introduced the metal skeleton technique of construction, which made possible the skyscraper. Business leaders of the period included George M. Pullman, developer of the sleeping car; Marshall Field, merchant; Philip D. Armour and Gustavus F. Swift, meat-packers; and Cyrus H. McCormick, inventor of the reaper. Millions of visitors came to the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893, and many decided to settle in the city. Chicago continued to grow as an industrial and commercial center. Immigrants poured in.

In the early decades of the 1900s, Chicago gained fame as a literary center. Harriet Monroe founded Poetry: A Magazine of Verse in 1912, and published the early works of many poets who later became well known. The Little Review, founded in 1914, emphasized new ideas in literature and art. The Chicago Group, which flourished until the mid-1920s, included such writers as Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, Edgar Lee Masters, and Ben Hecht. In other fields, international fame was won by Frederick Stock, orchestra conductor; Lorado Taft, sculptor, and Jane Addams, founder of Hull House. Meanwhile, during World War I thousands of Southern blacks migrated to Chicago to work in industry, and settled in deteriorating neighborhoods on the South Side. White hostility toward blacks led to race riots in 1919 and 1920. In the prohibition era, 1920-33, Al Capone and other gangsters gave Chicago a reputation for crime and violence. Chicago celebrated its 100th birthday with A Century of Progress, an exposition in 1933-34. During World War II Chicago was a principal center for the production of war materials. The booming economy attracted more black migrants, who crowded into the slums. The first controlled nuclear chain reaction, which made possible the atomic bomb, was achieved at the University of Chicago, 1942. During the postwar period vast slum clearance projects were initiated, and construction began on a network of expressways. A building boom began in the downtown area in the mid-1950s. In 1955 Richard J. Daley, head of a powerful democratic organization, was elected mayor. Under his leadership, the city continued its long-range improvement programs. With the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, Chicago became a world seaport. Many problems were encountered during the 1960s. A police scandal resulted in a major reorganization of the department. Street gangs were prevalent in slum areas. Blacks began to demonstrate for civil rights, including improved education, open housing, and better jobs. In 1968 rioting followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago in 1968. An estimated 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators from all parts of the country streamed into the city, many to protest the Vietnamese War. There were violent clashes between the demonstrators and the police, and at Mayor Daleys request troops were called in to restore order. In 1975 Mayor Daley was reelected to an unprecedented sixth term. He died in office a year later. The Democratic party organization that he had built was soon torn by dissension, with the supporters of Jane Byrne, who became mayor in 1979, opposing a faction led by Daleys son Richard M. Daley. In 1983 both Byrne and Daley ran for mayor but were defeated in the Democratic primary by Congressman Harold Washington, who won the general election to become the citys first black mayor. He died shortly after being reelected in 1987. Daley was elected mayor in 1989. He was reelected in 1991, and again in 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007. In 1992 water from the Chicago River leaked into an abandoned freight tunnel; subbasements and part of the subway system flooded, causing millions of dollars in property damage.