Building the Canal to Save Chicago

Building the Canal to Save Chicago PDF Author: Richard Lanyon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781469145815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
To accomplish the reversing of the flow of a river wouldn’t be possible today. But to Chicago near the end of the 19th Century it became a matter of survival. It is an unlikely place for a large city, with flat topography, poor drainage, next to a lake and near to a river into the continent. Those conditions in the 1800s appealed to westward expansion pioneers who traveled by water. A city was born, the railroads replaced water transport, population surged, and the lake was both water supply and toilet. The river became overwhelmed with the commerce of a port city and with sewage. It stank at times. Flooding from the interior tore through the city to get to the lake. What to do? Without sewage treatment it was decided to breach a sub continental divide, send the sewage away and save the lake. It received legislative blessing with the promise of a navigable canal. Chicago’s own shoulder-to-the-wheel determination made it work. The river was transformed into a canal flowing the other way.

Building the Canal to Save Chicago

Building the Canal to Save Chicago PDF Author: Richard Lanyon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781469145815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

Get Book Here

Book Description
To accomplish the reversing of the flow of a river wouldn’t be possible today. But to Chicago near the end of the 19th Century it became a matter of survival. It is an unlikely place for a large city, with flat topography, poor drainage, next to a lake and near to a river into the continent. Those conditions in the 1800s appealed to westward expansion pioneers who traveled by water. A city was born, the railroads replaced water transport, population surged, and the lake was both water supply and toilet. The river became overwhelmed with the commerce of a port city and with sewage. It stank at times. Flooding from the interior tore through the city to get to the lake. What to do? Without sewage treatment it was decided to breach a sub continental divide, send the sewage away and save the lake. It received legislative blessing with the promise of a navigable canal. Chicago’s own shoulder-to-the-wheel determination made it work. The river was transformed into a canal flowing the other way.

Draining Chicago

Draining Chicago PDF Author: Richard Lanyon
Publisher: Lake Claremont Press: A Chicago Joint
ISBN: 9781893121737
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
"The second in a four-book series. The first is 'Building the canal to save Chicago (2012).'"

West by Southwest to Stickney

West by Southwest to Stickney PDF Author: Richard Lanyon
Publisher: Lake Claremont Press: A Chicago Joint
ISBN: 9781893121652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The annexation of 1889 made Chicago's South Side the largest of the city's three sewer districts. With it came such challenges as Hyde Park sewers discharging to Lake Michigan, contamination threats at the Sixty-Eighth Street water intake crib; inadequate sewers and flooding; and the public health disaster of Bubbly Creek, the West Arm of the South Fork. Implementing the mayor's Pure Water Plan to eliminate sewers discharging to the lake involved intense cooperation. The city constructed huge intercepting sewers and a new pumping station, while the Sanitary District of Chicago contributed funding for some of the city's work. Addressing its own priorities, the District enlarged the capacity of the South Branch of the Chicago River, replacing obstructive bridges and widening and deepening the channel to pass enough water to keep Lake Michigan free of sewage and to provide dilution for sewage in the canals and rivers. Extending the Sanitary and Ship Canal and building the hydroelectric powerhouse at Lockport fulfilled the dream of low-cost sustainable power. The creation of what became the massive Stickney plant and sewershed eventually brought the promise of drainage relief to South and West Side residents and eliminated the daily discharge of sewage to the canals and the Des Plaines River. Finally, the Deep Tunnel project is bringing an end to the frequent discharge of sewage tainted stormwater to canals and rivers. This is the story of draining the South and West Sides of Chicago, and western suburbs; of eliminating the stagnant, encrusted cesspool that was Bubbly Creek; and of clearing the politics of out of the District to deliver taxpayers efficient, professional, and reliable service.

Challenging Chicago

Challenging Chicago PDF Author: Perry Duis
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252023941
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Challenging Chicago reveals the survival strategies to which the many people who flocked to the city resorted, especially those of the lower and middle classes for whom urban life was a new experience.

The Chicago River

The Chicago River PDF Author: Libby Hill
Publisher:
ISBN: 080933707X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Originally published: Lake Claremont Press, 2000.

Parting the Desert

Parting the Desert PDF Author: Zachary Karabell
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307566072
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Award-winning historian Zachary Karabell tells the epic story of the greatest engineering feat of the nineteenth century--the building of the Suez Canal-- and shows how it changed the world. The dream was a waterway that would unite the East and the West, and the ambitious, energetic French diplomat and entrepreneur Ferdinand de Lesseps was the mastermind behind the project. Lesseps saw the project through fifteen years of financial challenges, technical obstacles, and political intrigues. He convinced ordinary French citizens to invest their money, and he won the backing of Napoleon III and of Egypt's prince Muhammad Said. But the triumph was far from perfect: the construction relied heavily on forced labor and technical and diplomatic obstacles constantly threatened completion. The inauguration in 1869 captured the imagination of the world. The Suez Canal was heralded as a symbol of progress that would unite nations, but its legacy is mixed. Parting the Desert is both a transporting narrative and a meditation on the origins of the modern Middle East.

City of the Century

City of the Century PDF Author: Donald L. Miller
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795339852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1084

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Book Description
“A wonderfully readable account of Chicago’s early history” and the inspiration behind PBS’s American Experience (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). Depicting its turbulent beginnings to its current status as one of the world’s most dynamic cities, City of the Century tells the story of Chicago—and the story of America, writ small. From its many natural disasters, including the Great Fire of 1871 and several cholera epidemics, to its winner-take-all politics, dynamic business empires, breathtaking architecture, its diverse cultures, and its multitude of writers, journalists, and artists, Chicago’s story is violent, inspiring, passionate, and fascinating from the first page to the last. The winner of the prestigious Great Lakes Book Award, given to the year’s most outstanding books highlighting the American heartland, City of the Century has received consistent rave reviews since its publication in 1996, and was made into a six-hour film airing on PBS’s American Experience series. Written with energetic prose and exacting detail, it brings Chicago’s history to vivid life. “With City of the Century, Miller has written what will be judged as the great Chicago history.” —John Barron, Chicago Sun-Times “Brims with life, with people, surprise, and with stories.” —David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of John Adams and Truman “An invaluable companion in my journey through Old Chicago.” —Erik Larson, New York Times–bestselling author of The Devil in the White City

Prairie Passage

Prairie Passage PDF Author: Emily Harris
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252067142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Exhibition guide on the traveling photography exhibition and subsequent book titled Prairie Passage, by Edward Ranney.

The Canal Builders

The Canal Builders PDF Author: Julie Greene
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101011556
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 520

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Book Description
A revelatory look at a momentous undertaking-from the workers' point of view The Panama Canal has long been celebrated as a triumph of American engineering and ingenuity. In The Canal Builders, Julie Greene reveals that this emphasis has obscured a far more remarkable element of the historic enterprise: the tens of thousands of workingmen and workingwomen who traveled from all around the world to build it. Greene looks past the mythology surrounding the canal to expose the difficult working conditions and discriminatory policies involved in its construction. Drawing extensively on letters, memoirs, and government documents, the book chronicles both the struggles and the triumphs of the workers and their fami­lies. Prodigiously researched and vividly told, The Canal Builders explores the human dimensions of one of the world's greatest labor mobilizations, and reveals how it launched America's twentieth-century empire.

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal

The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal PDF Author: Charles River Charles River Editors
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781985344877
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes footnotes, online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents It has been called the greatest engineering project of the 1800s and the greatest undertaking by a single municipality, but the creation of the Chicago Canal was actually a reversal of nature, for the benefit of man. In the 19th century, some of the most important canals in the world were conceived or constructed, and while the Panama Canal and Suez Canal are better known, the Chicago canal is one of the greatest engineering projects in history. At nearly 30 miles long, the construction actually managed to reverse the flow of parts of the Chicago River, and though it was intended to be for sewage treatment, the canal continues to operate today, over 115 years after it officially opened. In the process, the canal opened up transportation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, cementing Chicago's status as one of the most important cities in the United States. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal: The History of the Waterway Connecting the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River looks at the important waterway. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the Chicago canal like never before, in no time at all.