Canal Origins Park

Canal Origins Park. . , [Panel 1:] , Welcome , Origins , Welcome to the place where water connections transformed Chicago from a tiny trading post into a national crossroads. The Illinois and Michigan Canal began here, and so does Chicago’s story. , , Water highways , In the days before trains, cars and airplanes, water was the best way to move people and goods. The nation’s first “highways” were rivers and man-made canals. Canal boats traveling at five miles per hour were speedy compared to wagons and stagecoaches on rutted, muddy trails. Thanks to canals, people could transport the heavy goods , stone, lumber and coal , needed to fuel America’s westward expansion. , , Geography is destiny , Illinois’ founders dreamed of connecting the East Coast (via the Erie Canal and Great Lakes) to the Gulf of Mexico (via the Mississippi River). Chicago was at the right spot. Cutting across a low continental divide known as the Chicago Portage, the I&M Canal united Lake Michigan with the Illinois River to provide the final link in a chain of waterways from New York to New Orleans. , , [Panel 2:] , Beginnings: Prehistory – 1800 , An ancient passageway , At the end of the last ice age, the mile-high glaciers that covered northeastern Illinois began to melt. Their floodwaters created Lake Michigan, and carved the Des Plaines and Illinois River valleys. , , These fertile river valleys formed a passageway from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River that people have traveled for thousands of years. , , Native Americans , For more than 10,000 years, the Illinois, Potawatomi, Miami and other Native Americans lived, hunted and fished along the rivers of Illinois. Traveling by canoe, they used the waterways to establish vast trading networks extending as far as Florida. , , The French , In 1673, Frenchmen Jolliet and Marquette were returning to Canada after exploring the Mississippi River. The Illinois Indians showed them a route to Lake Michigan via the Illinois, Des Plaines and Chicago Rivers. The river-to-lake shortcut made Jolliet dream of building a canal that would link the Great Lakes and Mississippi Watersheds. ,
[Caption beneath photo of mastodon:] At the end of the ice age about 14,000 years ago, mastodons and other now-extinct animals roamed Illinois. , , [Caption of background photo:] 400 million years ago, a tropical sea filled with coral reefs covered what is now Chicago. , , [Caption beneath painting of of Native Americans:] Marquette and Jolliet met the Illinois Indians at their village along the Illinois River, near present day Starved Rock State Park. , , [Caption next to painting of DuSable’s settlement:] In 1779, Jean DuSable established a fur trading post where the Chicago River met Lake Michigan. , , [Panel 3:] , Canal Transformation: 1801 – 1848 , An enduring vision [unreadable] Jolliet’s idea of a canal captured people’s imaginations for 150 years. It shaped Native American [unreadable], drew settlers and investors, and dictated the northern boundaries of the State of Illinois. , , Canal town , A dismal swamp. That’s how Chicago, a town of 50 inhabitants, was described in 1830, the year the I&M Canal Commissioners mapped the city’s streets. Five years later, government treaties forced most Native Americans from Illinois, which was still the nation’s western frontier. In 1836, the monumental task of building the 96-mile I&M Canal began. , , [Unreadable] is born , [Unreadable] 1848, after years of backbreaking labor, financial troubles and political squabbles, the I&M Canal opened, ending Chicago’s days as a frontier town. Like an elegant knot, the canal tied the U.S. together. The first boat to travel the full length of the I&M Canal carried sugar from New Orleans on its way to New York, symbolizing Chicago’s new [prominence or dominance] as a transportation crossroads. , , [Caption in bottom left:] , “Canal Land,” given to Illinois by the federal government, was sold to settlers and land speculators to help pay for canal construction. , , [Caption next to photo of shovel:] [Unreadable] most of them [unreadable] dug the I&M Canal by hand. , , [Caption for background photo:] By 1853, the canal transformed DuSable’s trading post into a thriving port city. , , [Caption next to drawing of people shoveling:] Before the canal, farmers hauled grain by wagon to trade in Chicago.
, [Caption next to drawing of boats on the canal:] Shipments of corn from Illinois to the east multiplied eight-fold the year after the canal opened. , , [Panel 4:] , Canal Transformation: 1849 – 1899 , A transportation revolution , In 1818, fur traders made the 100-mile trek from Chicago to LaSalle by canoe in three weeks. In 1835, a stagecoach took three days if it got stuck in the mud. By canal boat, the trip was 24 hours or less. , , Trade flourished with the canal’s completion. It carried tons of stone, corn and coal from Illinois, lumber from Michigan, manufactured goods from the east, and sugar and fruit from the south. , , The nation’s inland port , By 1853 the I&M Canal’s passenger trade was taken away by the railroads, but it remained competitive for shipping bulk cargo. In 1869, more freight vessels arrived at Chicago’s port than New York, New Orleans and San Francisco combined Business boomed and people from all over came to work in the lumberyards, stockyards and factories. The city’s population exploded to nearly 300,000 by 1870. , , Reversing the river , A big city meant big problems. The Chicago River was an open sewer, which flowed into Lake Michigan, polluting the water supply. Typhoid, dysentery and other infectious diseases killed thousands. In 1871, a few months before the Great Chicago Fire, workers completed a huge project to deepen the I&M Canal and reverse the flow of the Chicago River, sending the city’s sewage downstream. , , [Caption beneath drawing of the canal:] This 1871 image of the I&M Canal “Bridgeport” Lock shows the city in the background. , , [Caption next to painting of river reversal:] Huge crowds gathered here in 1871 to celebrate the reversal of the river. , , [Caption for background photo:] Canal boats filled with lumber and stone met lake boats on the Chicago River in 1882. , , [Caption for background photo on the right:] The pumping station wheel drew ater from the Chicago River at this site to supply the I&M Canal. , , [Panel 4:] , Canal Legacy: 1900 – Today , A new era , The deepened I&M Canal provided only a short-term solution for protecting the city’s water supply. In 1900, the massive Sanitary and Ship Canal permanently reversed the flow of the Chicago River. The Sanitary and Ship was the first of a new generation of canals to follow the I&M Canal. Today, cargo is transported between Chicago’s busy harbors and the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. , , It all started with the I&M Canal , When waterways were our highways, the Illinois and Michigan Canal inspired explorers, settlers and Illinois’ founders to create a great city where the Chicago River met Lake Michigan. Railroads, larger man-made waterways and expressways followed, but the canal’s legacy survives, Chicago still thrives as the nation’s transportation center. , , [Caption next to photo on the left:] It took a workforce of 8,500 men to build the Sanitary and Ship Canal which paralleled the I&M between Chicago and Lockport. , , [Caption for the background photo:] The Sanitary and Ship Canal was the world’s largest earth-moving project of the 19th century, and introduced technology later used to build the Panama Canal. , , [Caption next to photo of the Stevenson Expressway:] The Stevenson (I-55), bulit over the first seven miles of the abandoned I&M Canal, was first known as the I&M Canal Expressway. , , [Caption next to photo of the canal:] In Chicago, the I&M Canal became obsolete with the completion of the Sanitary and Ship Canal. It official closed for shipping when the Illinois Waterway opened in 1933. , , [Panel 5:] , Canal Origins Park , A place of discovery , For many years this neighborhood, [unreadable], was known by neighborhood youth as “the Amazon.” Few knew that, as the site where the Illinois and Michigan Cnaal began, it held a key to Chicago’s history. , , Partnerships make a park. , Since the late 1970s, the Canal Corridor Association has collaborated with community residents, educators, youth, public artists and the Chicago Park District, city, state and federal officials to reclaim and preserve this site. Today, Canal Origins Park is a place to learn about Chicago’s heritage as a canal town, enjoy a river edge oasis and reconnect with nature. , , Gateway to a national treasure , Canal Origins Park is the eastern gateway to the I&M Canal National Heritage Corridor, a region rich with parks, trails, historic towns and scenic landscapes united by the I&M Canal. Visit www.canalcor.org or call 815.888.1100 to plan your visit.