Illinois Michigan Canal is Responsible for Chicagos Size Essay

"Didn't expect no town" -Early Chicago Settler Mark Beaubien The I & M Canal is universally considered the driving force behind the huge surge of growth that turned the tiny settlement on the banks of Lake Michigan named Chicago, in to a huge metropolis and bustling center of trade. Ever since Joliet first crossed the portage between the Chicago River and the Des Plaines River in 1673, explorers, investors, politicians, and farmers alike all agreed that constructing a canal across the continental divide could benefit them greatly. The canal would connect the two largest water systems in the United States, creating a continuous waterway between New York and New Orleans, but more importantly, place Chicago on perhaps the most valuable piece of real estate in North America and in the position to become an international city almost overnight. The plans to build the Illinois & Michigan canal began in the newly started Illinois legislature in 1818. It was driven forward by the new construction on the Erie Canal in New York. Once the Erie Canal was complete only a canal between the Des Plaines and Chicago rivers would be necessary to complete the chain of waterways connecting New York to New Orleans. In 1822, Congress gave Illinois a large portion of land on which to not only build the canal, but to sell to raise funds for its construction. The land contained the portage between the two rivers and about 100 miles of land to the south and west of it. It had just recently been coercively and dishonestly purchased from the local Blackhawk Indians in a treaty that ended the Blackhawk War. As soon as the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, eastern investors quickly realized Chicago's huge potential. The land around what would one ... ...ys to twelve days. The canal remained a profitable enterprise until the year 1866 when the newly completed railroad system proved to be a cheaper and more efficient alternative. Use of the canal did not disappear however until around 1900 when it began to fall into disrepair. The final deathblow to the Illinois & Michigan came when the big, wider, and deeper Illinois Waterway was completed in 1933. However, though no longer in commercial use, the Illinois & Michigan canal remains as a source of recreation and will forever be remembered as the spark responsible for Chicago's leap to prominence. In 1833 the population of the newly incorporated town of Chicago was 250 people, by 1854, only 20 years later, the population had swelled to over 75 thousand. The city of Chicago had ascended from a tiny trading outpost to a thriving metropolis at an unprecedented speed.