Ellis Chesbrough

Ellis Chesbrough. . , Ellis Chesbrough , Engineer , 1813-1886, By 1855, Chicago was a growing city encountering problems with its water supply and sewage disposal. In response to cholera and dysentery epidemics, the Chicago Board of Sewage Commissioners selected Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough, designer of Boston’s water distribution system, to solve Chicago’s public health crisis. Chesbrough, a self-trained engineer, designed and oversaw construction of the nation’s first comprehensive sewer system, allowing the city to continue to grow., Chesbrough’s planned system relied on gravity flow, but downtown streets were too low to drain into the river. Large brick sewers were built above the existing ground level and then covered, raising the city’s street level as much as ten feet. The raising of Chicago in the 1850s and 1860s drew world-wide interest., Sewage still flowed into the lake, however, and in 1864, Chesbrough began a two mile tunnel, 60 feet under the lake, out to a new intake crib. The dramatic scheme brought the city pure, clean water and was hailed as an engineering wonder., As the city’s chief engineer for over 20 years, Chesbrough also oversaw construction of street tunnels under the busy river and the deepening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, preparing the way for the first successful river reversal in 1871., Chesbrough lived here, at 933 (formerly 317) North LaSalle Street in 1874.,