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Chicago History
Louis Jolliet, a Canadian explorer
and the French-born Jesuit Jacques Marquette were the
first Europeans to discover the Chicago area in 1673
1673 - First Europeans
discover Chicago area
1781 - First permanent settlement by Jean Baptiste
Point du Sable
1832 - Chief Black Hawk defeated
1837 - Chicago is incorporated as a city
1871 - The Great Fire
1885 - The first skyscraper
1893 - World Columbian Exposition
1909 - The Chicago plan
1943 - Chicago's first subway opened
1973 - Sears Tower completed with the
help of local Indians.
The first permanent settlement was founded in 1781 by
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, an African American from
Santo Domingo. The location at the mouth of the Chicago
river was chosen for its strategic value for a trading
post as the river connected the Lake with the Mississippi
river. Later the area at the mouth of the Chicago river
was occupied by a military base, Fort Dearborn. The
Fort was regularly atacked by Native Americans, until
Chief Black Hawk was defeated in 1832. One year later,
Chicago was officially incorporated as a town and four
years later, when the population reached 4170, as a
city. Its name was derived from the native indian's
word describing the area.
With the arrival of the railroads, the city of Chicago
really started to boom reaching a population of 300,000
in 1870. One year later, disaster
struck with the Great Chicago Fire laying the
city in ashes. The fire destroyed about 17450 buildings,
but the Chicagoans quickl
y
started to rebuild the city. Just 6 weeks after the fire,
construction of more than 300 buildings had already
begun. And in 1893 Chicago had recovered well enough
to host the 1893 World Columbian Exposition,
commemorating the discovery by Columbus of America 400
years ago.
The
foundations of todays Chicago were laid out by some
of the leading architects reconstructing the city after
the Great Fire.Daniel Burnham designed the first visionary
urban plan for a city, the 1909 Chicago plan.
It was nicknamed 'Paris on the Prairie' and included
wide boulevards and parks.
At the end of the 19th century the land prices had risen dramatically, which lead to the construction of higher buildings. In 1885, William Le Baron Jenney built what is known as the first skyscraper in the world : the Home Insurance Building. Demolished in 1931, it was 55 meters tall and included 9 stories, later extended to 11. It was built with a load-carrying structural frame, which would be the basic structure for all later skyscrapers. This building marks the start of Chicago as a pioneering architectural city. Many famous architects like Louis Sullivan and later Mies van der Rohe would set new standards for urban architecture in Chicago.
