Prior to 1850 1673: Marquette and Joliet explore site of Chicago. 1930: Merchandise Mart opens, becoming the world's largest building 1930: Shedd.

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Contents.The largest city of the American Midwest, Chicago, Illinois, was founded in 1830 and quickly grew to become, as Carl Sandburg’s 1916 poem put it, “Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.” Established as a water transit hub, the city evolved into an industrial metropolis, processing and transporting the raw materials of its vast hinterland. Chicago: Prehistory and Early YearsThe name Chicago comes from a Miami Indian word for the wild leeks that grew on the bank of the short Chicago River. Over the centuries the Miami, Sauk, Fox and Potawatomi tribes all lived in the area. The 1673 Marquette and Jolliet expedition crossed the Great Portage between the Chicago River and the, 10 miles of flat, often waterlogged ground separating the two great water transit systems of North America, the Great Lakes and the Valley.

Did you know? In 1860 the Republican National Convention was held in Chicago.

Illinois legislator Abraham Lincoln won the nomination there with strong backing from editor Joseph Medill's Chicago Tribune.The first non-Indian to settle within Chicago’s future boundaries was a Santo Domingan of mixed African and European ancestry, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, who arrived around 1780. In 1803 the U.S.

Army built Fort Dearborn on the south bank of the Chicago River. Little alchemy 2 how to make human. It was destroyed in an Indian raid in 1812 but rebuilt four years later. In 1830 platted lots for the future city were sold to help finance the Illinois and Canal. The 1832 Black Hawk War ended the last Native American resistance in the area.

Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833 and as a city in 1837, when its population reached 4,000. In 1848 Chicago got its first telegraph and railroad. Two innovations—grain elevators and the Board of Trade’s wheat grading standards—quickly transformed the way crops were sold.

By 1854 the city was the world’s largest grain port and had more than 30,000 residents, many of them European immigrants. Chicago: The Great Fire and RebuildingIn October 1871, a fire destroyed one-third of Chicago and left more than 100,000 homeless. Its initial spark remains unknown (legends of Mrs. O’Leary’s lantern-kicking cow notwithstanding), but it was fueled by drought, high winds and wooden buildings. The factories and railroads were largely spared, and the city rebuilt with astonishing speed.In the late 1800s Chicago grew as a national retail center and produced a crop of brand-name business tycoons, including Philip Armour, George Pullman, Potter Palmer and Marshall Field. In 1885 Chicago gave the world its first skyscraper, the 10-story. In later years architects Louis Sullivan, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius all added to the city’s growing skyline.

In 1893 Chicago hosted the World’s Columbian Exposition, which drew over 20 million visitors to its “White City” of plaster buildings built on former bogland beside Chicago’s south lakefront.