Published: November 6th 2006North America » United States » Illinois » Chicago
November 2nd 1992

Chicago

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Chicago, Illinois - United States of America

Nov 10, 1992

• City official name :Chicago
  
• Founded date :
  
• Location :Illinois State
  
• Elavation :? ft (? m)
  
• Area :Approximately ? square miles (? km²).
  
• Facts :Chicago is the largest city in Illinois and the third-most populous city in the United States, with approximately 2.9 million people. "Chicago" also refers to the Chicago Metropolitan area, known as Chicagoland, with a population of 9.4 million in three states. It is located along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan and is a center of transportation, industry, politics, finance and higher education.
  
  Chicago is known as the "Second City," the "Windy City," the "City of Big Shoulders", "Chi-City,"and "Chi-town." When combined with its suburbs and nine surrounding counties in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana, the greater metropolitan area known as Chicagoland encompasses a population greater than 9.4 million, making it the third largest in the United States. Chicagoland is predicted to have a population of 10 million by 2007.
  
  Since its foundation in 1833 as a frontier town of the Old Northwest, Chicago has grown into one of the ten most influential world cities. Chicago today is the financial, economic, and cultural capital of the Midwest,
  
  Chicago

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  Chicago, Illinois - United States of America
  and is recognized as a major transportation, business, and architectural center. The city's skyscrapers, local cuisine, political traditions, and sports teams are some of its most recognized symbols.
  
  During the mid-1700s the Chicago area was inhabited primarily by Potawatomis, who took the place of the Miami and Sauk and Fox people. The first non-native settler in Chicago, Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, was Haitian and arrived in the 1770s, married a Potawatomi woman, and founded the area's first trading post. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Fort Dearborn Massacre. The Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi later ceded the land to the United States in the Treaty of St. Louis of 1816. On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of 350, and within seven years it grew to a population of over 4,000. The City of Chicago was incorporated on March 4, 1837.
  
  Chicago in its first century was one of the fastest growing cities in the world, having started with a population of zero at the beginning of the 1800's swelling to over 1 million people by 1900. It was the only city in
  
  Chicago

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  Chicago, Illinois - United States of America
  the world with over 1 million people at the beginning of the 20th century that didn't exist at the beginning of the previous century.
  
  Starting in 1848, the city became an important transportation link between the eastern and western United States with the opening of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad, Chicago's first railway, and the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which allowed shipping from the Great Lakes through Chicago to the Mississippi River. With a flourishing economy that brought many new residents from rural communities and immigrants from Europe, Chicago grew from a city of 299,000 to nearly 1.7 million between 1870 and 1900. The city's manufacturing and retail sectors dominated the Midwest and greatly influenced the American economy, with the Union Stock Yards' dominating the packing trade.
  
  State Street in 1907After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Chicago experienced rapid rebuilding and growth. During Chicago's rebuilding period, the first skyscraper was constructed in 1885 using steel-skeleton construction. In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at the present location of Jackson Park. The World's Columbian Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered among the most influential world's fairs in history. The University of
  
  Chicago

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  Chicago, Illinois - United States of America
  Chicago was founded one year earlier in 1892 on the same location. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance, a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus & connects Washington & Jackson parks.
  
  The city was the site of labor conflicts and unrest during this period, which included the Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886. Concern for social problems among Chicago's lower classes led to the founding of Hull House in 1889, of which Jane Addams was a co-founder. The city also invested in many large, finely-landscaped municipal parks, which also included public sanitation facilities.
  
  Lake Michigan - the primary source of fresh water for the city - was already highly polluted from population growth and the rapidly growing industries in and around Chicago. The city responded by embarking on several large public works projects, including a large excavation project which built tunnels below Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs which were two miles (3 km) off the lakeshore. However, the cribs failed to bring enough clean water since spring rains would wash the polluted water from the Chicago River into them. Beginning in
  
  Chicago

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  Chicago, Illinois - United States of America
  1855, Chicago constructed the first comprehensive sewer system in the U.S. In 1900, the problem of sewage was solved by reversing the direction of the River's flow with the construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal leading to the Illinois River.
  
  The Chicago River at nightThe 1920s brought international notoriety to Chicago as gangsters such as Al Capone battled each other and the law during the Prohibition era. Nevertheless, the 1920s also saw a large increase in Chicago industry as well as the first arrivals of the Great Migration that would lead thousands of mostly Southern blacks to Chicago and other Northern cities. On December 2, 1942, the world's first controlled nuclear reaction was conducted at the University of Chicago as part of the top secret Manhattan Project.
  
  Mayor Richard J. Daley was elected in 1955, in the era of so-called machine politics. Starting in the 1950s, many upper and middle-class citizens left the inner-city of Chicago for the suburbs and left many impoverished neighborhoods in their wake. Nevertheless, the city hosted the 1968 Democratic National Convention and saw the construction of the Sears Tower (which became the world's tallest building), McCormick Place, and O'Hare Airport. In
  
  Chicago

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  Chicago, Illinois - United States of America
  1979 Jane Byrne, the city's first female mayor, was elected. She popularized the city as a movie location and tourist destination, but also failed to manage its finances well.
  
  In 1983 Harold Washington became the first African American to be elected to the office of mayor; during his time in office, Chicago spent the same amount of public funds in each of its wards for the first time in its history. Current mayor Richard M. Daley, son of Richard J. Daley, was first elected in 1989. New projects during the younger Daley's administration have made Chicago larger, more environmentally friendly, and more accessible.
  
  Since the early 1990s, Chicago has seen a turnaround with increased ethnic diversity and many formerly abandoned neighborhoods starting to show new life. As a part of its environmentally friendly image, Chicago declared the peregrine falcon, a protected species that started to build its nests in Chicago skyscrapers, the official bird of the city in 1999. Under the current Mayor Daley, Chicago has seen considerable investment in infrastructure, revitalizing downtown theatres and retail districts, and improving lakefront and riverfront cityscapes.
  
  Origin of name
  Windy City, Origin of Name (Chicago)
  
  The indigenous Potawatomi tribe called the marshes on which Chicago was later built "Checagou (prounounced 'She-Ka-Gan')," which translates to "wild onion" or "garlic." European explorers assigned the name to the Chicago River, followed by settlers' delegating it as the name of the city. Before Chicago's founding, the name of the river was spelled several ways, such as "Chetagu" or "Shikago."
  
  The origin of Chicago's nickname as "The Windy City" is debated (see List of nicknames for Chicago). The most common explanation had been that the phrase was created by New York newspapers in the 1880s during a national debate over which city would host the 1893 World's Fair, making reference to the long-windedness of the city's supporters. However, "Windy City" was used before this by the Chicago Fire. As a result, the name remains in common usage.