The Chicago River

The Chicago River PDF Author: Libby Hill
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 080933707X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
In this social and ecological account of the Chicago River, Libby Hill tells the story of how a sluggish waterway emptying into Lake Michigan became central to the creation of Chicago as a major metropolis and transportation hub. This widely acclaimed volume weaves the perspectives of science, engineering, commerce, politics, economics, and the natural world into a chronicle of the river from its earliest geologic history through its repeated adaptations to the city that grew up around it. While explaining the river’s role in massive public works, such as drainage and straightening, designed to address the infrastructure needs of a growing population, Hill focuses on the synergy between the river and the people of greater Chicago, whether they be the tribal cultures that occupied the land after glacial retreat, the first European inhabitants, or more recent residents. In the first edition, Hill brought together years of original research and the contributions of dozens of experts to tell the Chicago River’s story up until 2000. This revised edition features discussions of disinfection, Asian carp, green strategies, the evolution of the Chicago Riverwalk, and the river’s rejuvenation. It also explores how earlier solutions to problems challenge today’s engineers, architects, environmentalists, and public policy agencies as they address contemporary issues. Revealing the river to be a microcosm of the uneasy relationship between nature and civilization, The Chicago River offers the tools and knowledge for the city’s residents to be champions on the river’s behalf.

The Chicago River

The Chicago River PDF Author: Libby Hill
Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
ISBN: 080933707X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this social and ecological account of the Chicago River, Libby Hill tells the story of how a sluggish waterway emptying into Lake Michigan became central to the creation of Chicago as a major metropolis and transportation hub. This widely acclaimed volume weaves the perspectives of science, engineering, commerce, politics, economics, and the natural world into a chronicle of the river from its earliest geologic history through its repeated adaptations to the city that grew up around it. While explaining the river’s role in massive public works, such as drainage and straightening, designed to address the infrastructure needs of a growing population, Hill focuses on the synergy between the river and the people of greater Chicago, whether they be the tribal cultures that occupied the land after glacial retreat, the first European inhabitants, or more recent residents. In the first edition, Hill brought together years of original research and the contributions of dozens of experts to tell the Chicago River’s story up until 2000. This revised edition features discussions of disinfection, Asian carp, green strategies, the evolution of the Chicago Riverwalk, and the river’s rejuvenation. It also explores how earlier solutions to problems challenge today’s engineers, architects, environmentalists, and public policy agencies as they address contemporary issues. Revealing the river to be a microcosm of the uneasy relationship between nature and civilization, The Chicago River offers the tools and knowledge for the city’s residents to be champions on the river’s behalf.

Chicago River Bridges

Chicago River Bridges PDF Author: Patrick T. McBriarty
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252097254
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
Chicago River Bridges presents the untold history and development of Chicago's iconic bridges, from the first wood footbridge built by a tavern owner in 1832 to the fantastic marvels of steel, concrete, and machinery of today. It is the story of Chicago as seen through its bridges, for it has been the bridges that proved critical in connecting and reconnecting the people, industry, and neighborhoods of a city that is constantly remaking itself. In this book, author Patrick T. McBriarty shows how generations of Chicagoans built (and rebuilt) the thriving city trisected by the Chicago River and linked by its many crossings. The first comprehensive guidebook of these remarkable features of Chicago's urban landscape, Chicago River Bridges chronicles more than 175 bridges spanning 55 locations along the Main Channel, South Branch, and North Branch of the Chicago River. With new full-color photography of the existing bridges by Kevin Keeley and Laura Banick and more than one hundred black and white images of bridges past, the book unearths the rich history of Chicago's downtown bridges from the Michigan Avenue Bridge to the often forgotten bridges that once connected thoroughfares such as Rush, Erie, Taylor, and Polk Streets. Throughout, McBriarty delivers new research into the bridges' architectural designs, engineering innovations, and their impact on Chicagoans' daily lives. Describing the structure and mechanics of various kinds of moveable bridges (including vertical-lift, Scherer rolling lift, and Strauss heel trunnion mechanisms) in a manner that is accessible and still satisfying to the bridge aficionado, he explains how the dominance of the "Chicago-style" bascule drawbridge influenced the style and mechanics of bridges worldwide. Interspersed throughout are the human dramas that played out on and around the bridges, such as the floods of 1849 and 1992, the cattle crossing collapse of the Rush Street Bridge, or Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci's Michigan Avenue Bridge jump. A confluence of Chicago history, urban design, and engineering lore, Chicago River Bridges illustrates Chicago's significant contribution to drawbridge innovation and the city's emergence as the drawbridge capital of the world. It is perfect for any reader interested in learning more about the history and function of Chicago's many and varied bridges. The introduction won The Henry N. Barkhausen Award for original research in the field of Great Lakes maritime history sponsored by the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History.

The Chicago River

The Chicago River PDF Author: David M. Solzman
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Provides a guidebook to the river and its waterways. Explores the physical character as well as the natural history of the river.

Building the Canal to Save Chicago

Building the Canal to Save Chicago PDF Author: Richard Lanyon
Publisher: Lake Claremont Press: A Chicago Joint
ISBN: 9781893121713
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
Winner of the 2013 Abel Wolman Award for Best New Book in Public Works History. To reverse the flow of a river wouldn't be possible today, but to Chicago near the end of the nineteenth century it became a matter of survival. On the shores of Lake Michigan, connected to the Great Lakes system, with the Chicago River and easy waterway access to the expanding American West, Chicago had much that was ideal in the way of water for a burgeoning metropolis in the 1800s. It also had a flat topography and poor drainage. As the city swelled, railroads replaced water transport, the population surged, and the lake served both as water supply and sewage repository. The Chicago River became overwhelmed with the commerce of a port city and its residents' sewage. It stank at times. Deadly, waterborne diseases were spreading. 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 subcontinental divide, send the sewage away, and save the lake. The idea received legislative approval with the promise of a navigable canal. In the largest municipal earth-moving project ever at that point--an engineering marvel and a monumental public works success--the flow of the Chicago River was turned away from Lake Michigan in 1900. Chicago's own shoulder-to-the-wheel determination made it work. Author Richard Lanyon is the former executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Heavily illustrated with historic photos.

The Lost Panoramas

The Lost Panoramas PDF Author: Richard Cahan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780978545000
Category : Automobile industry and trade
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
With more than 150 never-before-published duotone images, taken between 1892 and 1930, this collection explores the history of the Chicago River and the impact its reversal had on the watershed all the way to the Mississippi River. Offering the most complete description available of the river reversal, the stories told here provide a better understanding as to how it was done and why it was necessary, as well as how the water from the Chicago River is treated. The photographs were pulled from a glass plate photo collection taken by the Sanitary District of Chicago.

The Eastland Disaster

The Eastland Disaster PDF Author: Ted Wachholz
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738534411
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
A pictorial chronicle of the events of July 24, 1915, when the steamship Eastland capsized and sank in the port of Chicago, killing over eight hundred people.

Reverse Effect

Reverse Effect PDF Author: Jeanne Gang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780984018307
Category : Carp
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
The title word 'effect' is presented reversed, as in a mirror image.

A Natural History of the Chicago Region

A Natural History of the Chicago Region PDF Author: Joel Greenberg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226306496
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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Book Description
"In A Natural History of the Chicago Region, Greenberg takes you on a journey that begins with European explorers and settlers and hasn't ended yet. Along the way he introduces you to the physical forces that have shaped the area from southeastern Wisconsin to northern Indiana and Berrien County in Michigan; the various habitat types present in the region and how European settlement has affected them; and the insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, and mammals found in presettlement times, then amid the settlers and now amid the skyscrappers. In all, Greenberg chronicles the development of nineteen counties in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin across centuries of ecological, technological, and social transformations."--BOOK JACKET.

The Chicago

The Chicago PDF Author: Harry Hansen
Publisher: New York : Farrar & Rinehart
ISBN:
Category : Chicago (Ill.)
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description


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.