CHICAGO 



1313 



CHICAGO 



lake front from the northern section of the 

 city to the south end. Many of these are 

 controlled by the city, and the new Clarendon 

 Avenue Beach, opened to the public in 1916, is 

 one of the best-equipped municipal beaches in 

 the world. 



How the City Gets Its Water. Lake Mich- 

 igan furnishes an inexhaustible store of water. 

 To bring into the city- and distribute the 

 575,000,000 gallons or more used daily, an intri- 

 cate system of cribs, lake and land tunnels 

 and pumping stations has been constructed. 

 Indeed, Chicago might well have the title city 

 of tunnels added to its other nicknames, so 

 extensively is the land beneath it honey- 

 combed. From two to four miles out in the 

 lake there are five cribs, with which connect 

 nine tunnels well below the bottom of the 

 lake, and these in their turn convey the water 

 to ten main land tunnels. Some of the lake 

 tunnels are fourteen feet in diameter. 



The most important thing about drinking 

 water is that it shall be pure, and of course it 

 cannot be if impure matter in great quantity 

 is dumped into the lake. Despite this fact all 

 the sewage of the city for a long time found 

 its way into the lake, but by 1875 it became 

 clear that some other method of sewage dis- 

 posal must be found if the health of the city 

 were not to suffer. Attempts were made to use 

 the old Illinois and Michigan Canal, but this 

 proved inadequate, and between 1892 and 1900 

 a new canal, one of the finest sanitary works 

 in all the world, was built (see CHICAGO DRAIN- 

 AGE CANAL) . By means of this the vast volume 

 of sewage of the city finds its way through the 

 Illinois River to the Mississippi, and so to 

 the Gulf of Mexico. Chicago River no longer 

 in reality empties into Lake Michigan; the 

 Drainage Canal meets it, and the current, re- 

 versed, flows from the lake westward through 

 the city. 



The World's Greatest Railway Center. Chi- 

 cago stands supreme as a railroad center. No 

 railroad runs through Chicago, for every train 

 that enters the city reaches a terminal; and 

 the thirty-four lines terminating there have 

 a combined mileage which is half that of all 

 the railroad systems of the United States. It 

 is believed that the number of railways center- 

 ing in the city will never be increased, as there 

 is no room for another roadbed, except at 

 such enormous expense as to be prohibitive. 

 Some of those already entering the city are 

 unpleasantly crowded in the hours when local 

 traffic is heavy. Six large stations, all but one 

 83 



of them in the downtown district, accommo- 

 date the passenger sen-ice, and by 1922 a great 

 new Union Station will have been completed, 

 rivaling any found elsewhere in the world. 

 Each road has its extensive freight depots in 

 various parts of the city; a belt line extends 

 almost around three sides of the city, connect- 

 ing the different roads and forming a complete 

 freight transfer system. 



The entrance into the city of so many great 

 railways made necessary very dangerous grade 

 crossings, but beginning in 1892 these were in 

 large measure done away with by the elevation 

 of tracks, at a cost of a million dollars a mile. 

 To-day Chicago has within its limits more 

 than twice as many miles of elevated track as 

 have all the other cities of the United States 

 together. 



Commerce and Industries. Naturally a city 

 that is the greatest railroad center in the world 

 might be supposed to have a large rail com- 

 merce. It has that, and more. Chicago is 

 also one of the greatest of inland ports, lines' 

 of steamers, both freight and passenger, con- 

 necting with all the other important lake ports. 

 Over 6,000 ships a year enter and leave its 

 harbor, and these deposit 8,500,000 tons of 

 freight and bear away an equal amount. The 

 city is a sort of clearing house; it does not 

 keep all that is brought into it, but reships 

 much of it. The iron which constitutes over 

 fifty per cent of the weight of its lake imports 

 it makes use of in its great suburban steel 

 mills, but much of the lumber and grain that 

 arrives is shipped again, Chicago ranking as 

 the greatest grain market and the greatest 

 lumber market in the world. It is also first 

 in its export of packing-house products. 

 Among the cities of the United States only 

 New York surpasses Chicago in the volume 

 and value of its trade. 



Docking facilities for years were inadequate, 

 and partly to remedy this condition a great 

 Municipal Pier, near the mouth of the river, 

 was completed in 1916. It is built of concrete 

 and steel and extends over half a mile into 

 Lake Michigan. At its farther end is space 

 used for a recreation center 660 feet long and 

 300 feet wide, which has easily accommodated 

 100,000 people in a single day. The pier cost 

 $4,500,000. 



With the coal fields of Illinois so near and 

 the raw materials from the great Middle West 

 so easily available, Chicago has become an 

 important manufacturing center. Over 350,000 

 people are employed in its various establish- 



