CHICAGO 



1316 



CHICAGO 



CHICAGO IN 1830 



The stockade is the second Fort Dearborn, built after the destruction of the first, which is pic- 

 tured under the title FORT DEARBORN. The John Kinzie house is at the right of the picture. 



thirty-five wards. Certain department heads, - 

 as the chief of police and the fire chief, are 

 appointed by the mayor and go out of office 

 with him, but throughout the departments 

 themselves civil service methods prevail. The 

 total revenue and expenditures of the city 

 amount to atiout $60,000,000 annually. 



The People. Chicago has a greatly-varied 

 population, about seventy-seven per cent of 

 its inhabitants being foreign born or of foreign 

 parentage. By far the most numerous of these 

 adopted citizens are the Germans, of whom 

 there are over half a million. That is, Chicago 

 is a larger German city than is Frankfort, one 

 of the most important cities of the German 

 Empire. Austrians rank next in number, then 

 the Irish, Russians, Swedes and Italians, in 

 that order. Newspapers are published regularly 

 in at least ten languages, and within the con- 

 fines of the city the church service is given 

 in at least a score. The total population of 

 Chicago in 1910 was 2,185,283; in 1913 it was 

 estimated at 2,388,500; and in 1916 by the 

 Federal census authorities at 2,497,722. 



History. Interest in the history of Chicago 

 centers in its growth, remarkable even among 

 American cities. Other cities have had 

 "booms," but Chicago's expansion has been 

 continuous. Attempts have been made to 

 prove that the name Chicago is from an 

 Indian word meaning mighty, . or 'that it has 

 some poetic or high moral significance, but 

 the general opinion is that it is a form of 

 the Indian name for the everywhere-present 

 wild onion. The first white visitors to the 

 site were Marquette and Joliet, who stopped 

 there in 1673, and other great French explorers 

 followed them. In 1779 a negro from San 

 Domingo built a cabin on the north bank of 



the Chicago River, and in 1804 this came into 

 the possession of John Kinzie, the first white 

 man to make his home on the site of the city. 

 The Federal government in 1804 built Fort 

 Dearborn (which see) on the south bank of the 

 river, and though this was abandoned when the 

 Indian massacre of 1812 occurred, it was re- 

 built four years later. In 1830 maps were 

 made, definitely marking out the town of 

 Chicago, which had a total area of three- 

 eighths of a square mile and contained twenty- 

 seven voters. When incorporated, three years 

 later, the town had a slightly-increased area 

 and a population of 550, while its tax-levy 

 reached the total of $48.90. The first city 

 water works, constructed in 1834, consisted of 

 a well that cost $95. 



From this time on the growth was steady, if 

 not particularly rapid. The Illinois and Mich- 

 igan Canal, begun in 1836 and completed in 

 1848, and the Chicago & Galena Union Rail- 

 road, which later was the nucleus of the great 

 Chicago & North Western system, brought 

 the little city into touch with the territory to 

 the west, the territory upon which its pros- 

 perity was to depend; and the population in- 

 creased from 4,480 in 1840 to almost 300,000 

 in 1870. The city's first and greatest calamity 

 occurred in 1871 ; a terrible fire broke out on 

 October 8 on the West Side, extended north 

 and west and raged for two days and nights, 

 destroying property valued at $196,000,000 and 

 rendering 100,000 persons homeless. With won- 

 derful rapidity the city was rebuilt, the old 

 wooden structures being replaced in large 

 measure by those of brick and stone. 



In its later history Chicago has suffered much 

 from labor troubles. Out of these grew the 

 Haymarket Riot of 1886, in which seven 



