The pre-European era

In the present-day Chiacago area, several tribes lived as European colonization began on the North American continent. Mascoute, Miami, Potawatomi and Illinois are all names of people who had connections with each other through trade and seasonal hunting.

In the area itself along Lake Michigan, there were mainly Potawatomi people who, along with the European settlement, crowded other tribes to the west. Like many other places in the United States, the tribes have given names to the geography of modern USA. For example, the word Chicago comes from the Illinois-Miami language designation Shikaakwa, which refers to onion plants that grow along the Chicago River. Likewise, the state of Illinois’ name comes from the tribe.

Chicago Pioneers

With the help of local Indians, French Jesuit monk Jacques Marquette and Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet explored the first European area of ​​present-day Chicago; Their journey took place in 1673. It then became a French mission in 1696, but due to the turmoil and attacks of the locals, the area was abandoned in the 1720s.

Thus, the first permanent settlement was only founded a little later when Jean Baptiste Point du Sable of Santo Domingo established a settlement and trading station at the mouth of the Chicago River in 1781. He was himself the first resident of the strategically good site with access to Lake Michigan and huge natural resources to the north and west. In 1795, the first of the country was officially transferred by the original population to the state of the United States.

At Du Sable’s settlement, Fort Dearborn was built in 1803. It was to be a defense against the attacking Native tribes that regularly housed the area. After many times attacking the fort, the Indians were finally defeated in 1832, with the Americans winning over Chief Black Hawk. As a result, a significant obstacle to further growth and development was cleared.

City status 1833

With the victory over the Indians, the area had settled down, and Chicago with 350 residents was officially upgraded to the status of a city in 1833. The following year, the schooner Illinois made the quay. It came from Sackets Harbor in the state of New York and marked the start of important commercial traffic across Lake Michigan.

Quite quickly many farmers arrived, and their harvest crops were transported by the newly constructed roads to Chicago’s port for shipping; Often, New York was the target of the crops. The population increased, and by 1837 it had reached 4,000.

The first railroad to Chicago was opened from Galena in 1848, and in a few years railways were built from all directions to the city at Lake Michigan. That same year, the Illinois & Michigan Canal Waterway was opened, connecting it to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

With all these transport routes, Chicago’s role as one of the United States’ absolute traffic hubs was established. Agricultural products and timber from the areas north and west of Chicago were processed in the city and passed on to the cities to the east, and the favorable situation led to colossal growth and immigration to the city. Trading companies flourished on the big turnover, and companies like Sears and Montgomery Ward saw the light of day.

The population almost exploded during this period. Out of 350 people in 1833, about 30,000 lived here just 17 years later, and within ten more years, the number was around 100,000. By 1870, Chicago had grown to the second largest city in the United States with more than 300,000 inhabitants.

Urban fire and rebuilding

A large part of Chicago’s physical growth has been through the use of wood as a building material. Most buildings, sidewalks and other things were thus easily ignited if the accident should occur, as it did in 1871. Here, in the midst of the great growth period of the 19th century, the city was hit by an extensive fire that left large parts of the city desolate. In total, over 17,000 buildings were lost and in the center there were only a few buildings that survived. A third of the inhabitants were also homeless, while about 300 died as a result of the fire.

A great deal of reconstruction work was started, and already a few weeks after the fire, the first new buildings began to be erected. The large, devastated areas and a conscious choice of materials other than wood enabled the use of the space at height to a greater extent than before. Chicago, therefore, became the site that pushed the United States skyscraper scare. Innovative construction methods were applied in response to the soft and swampy subsoil of Lake Michigan. Steel skeletons were the answer, and by 1885 the world’s first modern skyscraper was complete; it was the nine-story high Home Insurance Building.

Steel skeletons were also used to secure better traffic in the city a few years later. The iconic subway, the L, opened in 1892 and has since acted as a backdrop in a sea of ​​films. In the rapidly growing city, the track was constructed as bridges over the existing street network, providing the desired accessibility.

The new builds were to be built at a speed in the thriving city, which, with its good location, trade, production and logistics, merely attracted European immigrants and people from the eastern states of the United States. From the fire of 1871 to the year 1900, the population increased from 300,000 to 1,700,000.

The city had literally risen from the ashes and sat down further on the world map with the holding of the World Exhibition’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. It happened on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Christoffer Columbus’s trip to America. The exhibition became a staging piece with 27.5 million visitors and pavilions in styles that sparked the country’s beaux-arts construction in the following years.

City plans and syndicates

Chicago’s near-constant growth resulted in the first major, overall city plan in 1909. The plan was called The 1909 Chicago Plan, but due to the many intended boulevards and parks, it was also known as the mind of the Prairie’s Paris / Paris on the Prairie. With the city plan, the city evolved from a fast-growing, large settler community to a planned and rapidly growing, modern metropolis. The results of the plan include the city’s central parks and the Navy Pier.

With more residents and increasingly economic importance, the central areas of Chicago had risen dramatically in value in the late 1800s. Growth constantly brought new building wishes into the center, and the solution was higher and taller buildings. Of course, with the many new residents, the city also expanded, and suburb after suburb was established in those decades, with people from large parts of Europe and blacks from the southern United States being among those who settled in ethnic neighborhoods like many other places in the country. .

World War I started in Europe, and later came the Prohibition. Events that infected Chicago in the 1920s became home to syndicates and others who found a lucrative business in smuggling spirits from Canada. Among the best known leaders were Al Capone and Frank Nitti, and over the years there were ongoing meetings between the rival groups.

The 1920s again became a decade of new and higher skyscrapers. Art deco won in style, and the city’s economy and activity grew with construction. The stock market crash in 1929 and the depression in the 1930s, as in the rest of the world, left its mark on the activity, and for many decades not many new skyscrapers were built.

In the heavy economy of the 1930s, however, there were also bright spots. For example, in 1933, the city’s 100th anniversary was celebrated with the exhibition Century of Progress, which attracted more than 40 million guests. The theme of the exhibition was technological development in Chicago’s time, and it provided hope and inspiration in a time when the positive news was not in line.

During those years, parts of the secret Manhattan Project also took place in Chicago, whose university on December 2, 1942 became the home of the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction. An event that helped create a new foundation for the military development of the following decades and for the world’s energy production.

Building even higher

After the end of World War II, a development with increased relocation from central neighborhoods to the suburbs that sprang up like mushrooms came in line with the expansion of highway networks and local railways. During the same period, in the 1950s, the labor market also changed with many job reductions in the industry. Chicago’s population dropped and poor neighborhoods emerged; something new in the city’s history.

In response to the problems, the city council adopted the so-called Plan 21, which sought to bring about improvements in the poor areas by turning them into a kind of suburban city. The public constructed new housing that should be attractive to move to.

In the 1950s, Chicago’s infrastructure was greatly expanded with not least the large network of freeways, but investments were also made to maintain the city’s status as one of the entire US traffic hubs. The city built the international O’Hare airport as a replacement for Midway, and O’Hare quickly developed into one of the world’s busiest locations for the rapidly increasing air traffic.

The trip also came to the somewhat worn-out city center, where a new skyscraper scare started. The buildings reached new heights, and the best known was the world’s tallest building, the Sears Tower, which was completed in 1973. The AON Center and John Hancock Center from this time also remain among the country’s and the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

In recent decades, there has been a lot of activity in Chicago’s downtown, which in turn has begun to attract new residents. New buildings are constantly being fired, including the Trump International Hotel and Tower, and lovely leisure and activity facilities are being built along Lake Shore Drive. New is a higher degree of environmental action; such as the many gardens set on top of the flat skyscrapers.

Major events are also held on an ongoing basis in Chicago. When the soccer world championships were held in the United States in 1994, the city was host to the opening match, which was followed by billions around the world. Concerts, theatrical performances and prestigious exhibitions at the city’s museums are also part of the experience of today’s Chicago, which has reached farther than most from the start with 350 inhabitants in 1833.