History Lover's Guide to Chicago, A

By Greg Borzo

Founded next to a great lake and a sluggish river, Chicago grew faster than any city ever has. Splendid department stores created modern retailing, and the skyscraper was invented to handle the needs of booming businesses in an increasingly concentrated downtown. The stockyards fed the world, and railroads turned the city into the nation's transportation hub. A great fire leveled the city, but Chicago rose again. Glorious museums, churches and theaters sprang up. Explore a missile site that became a bird sanctuary and discover how Chicago's first public library came to be located in an abandoned water tank. Follow the steps of business leaders and society dames, anarchists and army generals, and learn whose ashes were surreptitiously sprinkled over Wrigley Field. Combining years of research and countless miles of guided tours, author Greg Borzo pursues Chicago's sweeping historical arc through its fascinating nooks and crannies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781439673980

Greg Borzo

Raised in Des Moines, Greg Borzo is the author of Chicago Cable Cars, Where to Bike Chicago, and The Chicago "L."? He is a member of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition and the Des Moines Bicycle Collective, as well as the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago and the Chicago Tour-Guide Professionals Association. John Karras was a bicycle enthusiast and copy editor at the Des Moines Resgister in 1973 when he co-founded RAGBRAI. Over the next four decades, he nurtured the ride, helping it develop into the world's largest, longest and oldest bicycle touring event. Still involved with RAGBRAI, Karras is the person most responsible for its incredible success.

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INTRODUCTION

THE GLORIOUS LAKEFRONT

Lake Michigan and the Chicago River are the reason why Chicago was founded and developed. Together, they are central to what makes Chicago livable and attractive. With water, water everywhere, it’s a wonder that Chicago is not known as the Watery City rather than the Windy City.

So, let’s begin with a look at Chicago’s glorious, thirty-mile lakefront, all but four miles of which are publicly owned. This didn’t happen by accident. In 1909, only one-quarter of the lakefront was open to the public. Lakefront land had to be claimed for the public, built up and protected—in some cases, fought for. This was accomplished through fits and starts.

Over the years, many obstructions to the water were constructed along the lakefront, including a fort, cemeteries, railroad tracks and railyards, squatters’ settlements, stables, garbage dumps, a baseball park, factories, grain elevators, warehouses, shoreline motels, enormous parking lots, a private airport and four Nike missile sites with scores of missiles, some of which were armed with nuclear warheads. All of these affronts were later removed or at least covered over.

In addition, many buildings and facilities that would have cluttered up the lakefront have been proposed but were never built, including a massive public airport, city hall, civic center, armory, police station, post office, library and power plant. Blocking these structures has often depended on a few words that were written—without much formal consideration—across a map of Chicago in 1836, a year before the city was even incorporated. These words were penned by three commissioners of the Illinois and Michigan Canal who had been charged with platting sections of Chicago so that plots of land could be sold to finance the canal. The commissioners wrote above a section of this map along the lakefront between Madison and 11th Streets: PUBLIC GROUND—A Common to Remain forever Open, Clear & free of any buildings, or other Obstructions Whatever.

Lake Michigan once came up to Michigan Avenue. A railroad trestle along the lakefront created a basin that was gradually transformed into Grant Park. Chicago Public Library, Special Collections.

This limited protection has been stretched to block select developments up and down the entire lakefront. At other times, however, these words were ignored. As a result, parts of the lakefront are cluttered with an enormous convention center, two water filtration plants, a stadium, a university and scores of condo buildings. The most pronounced insult to the lakefront might well have been the construction of Lake Shore Drive, now Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive. As celebrated and accepted as it may be, LSD is a formidable obstacle that prevents people from accessing and enjoying a forever open, clear and free lakefront.

All this demonstrates that the history of the lakefront—indeed, the history of the entire city—is alive. Fights over land use, buildings and priorities will continue—however informed by history they might be.

LAKEFRONT

In the young city, homes and buildings along Michigan Avenue, which then bordered the lake, were frequently assailed by waves and storms. After it became clear that neither the city nor the state would pay to protect this shoreline, the Illinois Central (IC) Railroad offered to build a protective breakwater, provided it could also build a train trestle along the shoreline. In the 1850s, the IC built the trestle about four hundred feet out in the lake. It ended at a huge terminal on Randolph Street; massive railyards, south and east of the terminal, were added later.

The resulting basin became an unsightly mire, so it was filled in. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 inadvertently provided tons of rubble for this work. The new piece of landfill was called Lake Park (renamed Grant Park in 1901).

The budding Lake Park was quickly muddled with garbage, followed by sheds, shacks and squatters. This mess caught the eye of mail-order king Aaron Montgomery Ward as he looked out the window of his headquarters on Michigan Avenue. He was so disgusted by what he saw that he sued to clean up and protect the park. Over twenty-two years, his fight involved four lawsuits, all the way up to the Illinois Supreme Court. Ward suffered financially and personally from the bruising battles. The press criticized him, with the Chicago Tribune calling him a human icicle. His wealthy peers shunned him, and the business community reviled him. The lakefront should be used to bring revenue to the city, one alderman proclaimed.

Still, Ward won every case, as the courts ruled that the canal commissioner’s words on that lowly map from 1836 were literal and perpetual.

AARON MONTGOMERY WARD BUST

Michigan Avenue at 11th Street

This bust honors Ward not because he founded the country’s first mail-order retail business but rather due to his tireless efforts to preserve public access to Chicago’s lakefront. The only building that Ward accepted in the park was the Art Institute of Chicago, which was already constructed and widely supported by the time he began his crusade. When it came to the Field Museum of Natural History, however, Ward held his ground. Daniel Burnham wanted the museum located in the heart of Grant Park, but in 1909, Ward sued to block its construction. He did offer a compromise: let the museum locate there in exchange for a guarantee that no further structures would be erected in Grant Park. His offer was spurned, so the Field Museum was obliged, much later, to build outside Grant Park.

From 2006 to 2012, the well-heeled Chicago Children’s Museum tried to build in Grant Park, but to no avail, primarily because of the forever free, open and clear doctrine. More recently, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art was also blocked from the lakefront.

Oddly, Ward didn’t get a park named after him until 2010. And then it was only a tiny park located along the river (at 630 North Kingsbury Street) rather than along the lakefront that he so determinedly protected.

MILLENNIUM PARK

Michigan Avenue, between Randolph and Monroe Streets

This world-class park is actually a rooftop garden—possibly the world’s largest—built over the IC’s tracks and automobile parking lots. The jaw-dropping, seventeen-acre park is the lakefront’s crown jewel. It opened in 2004 and features the Crown Fountain and Cloud Gate, aka the Bean.

LAKEFRONT

From Edgewater to South Shore, Twenty-Two Miles

The Lakefront is widely considered the country’s most beautiful, best-preserved city shoreline park. Its nineteen-mile walking and bicycle path has more than fifty access points. A number of attractions and historical sites adorn the way: the Magic Hedge bird sanctuary, Theater on the Lake, North Avenue Beach House, chess pavilion, Museum Campus, Promontory Point, 63rd Street Beach House, South Shore Cultural Center and so on.

There are some blunders along the way, too. One of the most glaring is McCormick Place, an enormous eyesore very close to the shore. A lakeside convention center was proposed in 1955 and strongly supported by the new mayor, Richard J. Daley. It was opposed, however, by the public, consultants, preservationists and the Chicago Plan Commission, all of whom raised serious objections. Not only did the proposed center gobble up lakefront land, but it was also too far from downtown’s hotels and restaurants, not economically feasible, inaccessible by transit, certain to aggravate traffic congestion on Lake Shore Drive, included surface parking lots and cut Burnham Park in two.

To get his way, Daley created a new planning department directly responsible to him and rammed the project through. The widely derided concrete monolithic McCormick Place opened in 1960. Seven years later, a fire destroyed what had become known as the Mistake on the Lake. The fire practically amounted to euthanasia, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. But the city didn’t learn from its mistake. It rebuilt McCormick Place in 1971—even bigger than before. The complex has been continually expanded inland and today is known as the Colossus on the Lake. Many critics have called for the demolition of the 1971 building, the big black Lakeside Center, to restore that section of the lakefront.

Two massive water filtration plants were also allowed on the lakefront. The Eugene Sawyer Water Purification Plant was built at 79th Street in 1945, and the James W. Jardine Water Purification Plant was built at Ohio Street in 1968. Nathaniel Owens, chair of the once influential Chicago Plan Commission, proposed inland sites for the Jardine plant, saying, We’re opposed to anything that will detract from Chicago’s magnificent lakefront…a prized asset that should be saved for recreational and cultural development. Nevertheless, the City Council and Park District followed Mayor Richard J. Daley’s insistence on locating the plant right on the lakefront.

OLIVE PARK

Lakefront Path at Ohio Street

To mollify critics of the huge water filtration plant on the lakefront, the city promised a large new park adjacent to the plant, with softball diamonds, tennis courts and five fancy illuminated fountains that would operate even in the winter with steam pouring from the plant. In the end, Olive Park is only ten acres with none of the promised embellishments. It offers dramatic views of the city, but the little park is a big disappointment. Today, its ballyhooed fountains are just craters of cracked concrete.

SOUTH SHORE CULTURAL CENTER

7059 South Shore Drive

This palatial Mediterranean-style building, with its grand colonnaded approach, was once the exclusive South Shore Country Club, a private institution formed in 1905 as a counterpart to the elite social clubs downtown. By the time this building opened in 1916, the approximately sixty-five-acre property included tennis courts, a nine-hole golf course, a beach, a solarium, a butterfly garden and a banquet hall. In the 1950s, African Americans began moving into the area in large numbers. After the club’s membership began to fall in the 1960s, it considered admitting Jews and African Americans but decided not to do so. That only accelerated the club’s decline.

In 1974, the Chicago Park District purchased the property, restored the main building and launched a theater, art school, dance studio and other programs. The center is also home to the Parrot Cage Restaurant, operated by Washburne Culinary Institute to train students. The restaurant’s table centerpieces and lighted glass panel are from Le Perroquet, a renowned French restaurant in downtown Chicago (1973–94).

The South Shore Cultural Center was formed as an exclusive club in 1905 but is now a public park. The Obamas held their wedding reception here.

EUGENE WILLIAMS MEMORIAL

Lakefront Path at 2900 South

This marker memorializes seventeen-year-old Eugene Williams, who drowned on July 27, 1919, after being hit by a rock thrown by a white man who objected to the Black boy swimming near a beach that was considered Whites Only. The incident touched off a race riot that resulted in thirty-eight deaths, five hundred injuries and thousands of people left homeless. Not installed until 2009, this small marker is the only memorial to one of the city’s ugliest stories.

LANDFILL

How much of the lakefront is landfill, and what was used as fill? The shoreline has been drastically altered—in some cases moved east more than half a mile. Most of the material used for these landfill projects was rubble from the Chicago Fire, building wreckage, soil and rock excavated from building sites and mud from building the subways.

Pushing back against the lake began with several efforts to cut through a sandbar at the mouth of the crooked Chicago River. That was finally accomplished in the early 1830s, and a 1,500-foot-long pier was built later to keep the mouth of the river open. Sand accumulated north of this pier, and over time, a great deal of sand and debris piled up. The city added landfill to create Lake Shore Drive.

This statue celebrates the role of eccentric George Cap Streeter, who fought with the city for thirty years over a huge parcel of lakefront property.

STATUE OF GEORGE CAP STREETER

Grand Avenue and McClurg Court

In 1886, George Cap Streeter grounded his boat, some say intentionally, on a sandbar north of the mouth of the Chicago River. Sand accumulated around his boat, and Streeter encouraged people to dump trash and debris in the area. Eventually, he claimed more than 180 acres of the newly formed land and declared himself Territorial Governor of the District of Lake Michigan. Threats, eviction notices, court battles and even a gunfight in 1900 failed to dislodge him and his cronies. In 1902, Streeter was imprisoned for murder but released a few months later. Finally, in 1918, he was forcefully removed from the contested area.

Streeter may have been an eccentric criminal, but he bestowed his name on Streeterville, land that eventually flourished into one of Chicago’s wealthiest areas. It lies east of Michigan Avenue and north of the river and is home to more than thirty thousand people.

Other stories about landfill along the lakefront are less colorful. Parts of Lincoln Park were extended repeatedly, as early as 1887 and as recently as 2019; Burnham Harbor and Northerly Island were built in the 1920s; and the area around North Avenue’s extensive beaches was created in 1938–40 through the Works Progress Administration. This work included a beach house that looked like an ocean liner. After the ship deteriorated, it was rebuilt in 2000 with what has become a popular bar on its upper deck. One of the most successful landfills was Promontory Point, a peninsula completed in 1937 that’s a favorite gathering place for Hyde Parkers.

CHICAGO RIVER

Chicago’s second raison d’être is the Chicago River. Early in the city’s history, the river was used as an open sewer, contaminating Lake Michigan, the city’s supply of drinking water. The solution? Reverse the flow of the river and send the sewage southwest. After much discussion, some controversy and a few failed attempts, the reversal was accomplished in 1900 with the completion of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. It’s the largest municipal earth-moving project ever completed, and many tools and techniques developed for the undertaking contributed to the building of the Panama Canal.

The Riverwalk is a festive path along the once dirty river and forlorn waterfront. Construction of the now popular attraction began in 2001 and still continues.

Also early in Chicago’s history, the Main Stem of the river served as the city’s harbor. For years, this harbor handled more boats (in sheer numbers, not in terms of tonnage) than several major eastern ports combined. At times, the river port was so full of boats that one could cross it by stepping from one vessel to another. All of this changed at the turn of the century, as the river was less able to accommodate ever-larger vessels. By 1906, the Calumet Harbor, with more waterways and deeper channels, was outpacing freight and industrial traffic on the Chicago River.

Another important impact of the river was the way it split the city into three sections: north, south and west. Before the river was successfully bridged going north and west—and later traversed by transit lines—most of the action in Chicago was concentrated south of the river, which included downtown.

CHICAGO RIVERWALK

South Bank of the River along Wacker Drive

The Chicago Riverwalk is an inviting, picturesque promenade from the Lakefront Path to Lake Street along the southern bank of the river, with multiple access points. It offers many amenities, including restaurants, bars, fountains, scenic viewpoints, boat rentals, small parks, play areas, seating, a memorial and a museum. The Riverwalk also offers plenty of fabulous people watching. This popular path—for both tourists and locals—features a series of rooms, such as theater, cove, marina, water plaza, etc., each one designed with a different theme to accommodate diverse activities and varied interests.

The riverfront east of Michigan Avenue on the