History
No one is sure when Native Americans first lived in the Chicago region, but evidence can be traced back to 1000 AD. By the late 1600s, there were many tribes in the region, the dominant one being the Potawatomi Indians. In 1673, Indians directed Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet and missionary Jacques Marquette to Lake Michigan via the Chicago River. The two learned that the Indians of the region called the area around the mouth of the river 'Checaugou,' after the wild garlic (some say onions) growing there.
After the Revolutionary War, the US increasingly focused attention on its vast western frontier. Chicago's position on Lake Michigan suited the government's plan to create a permanent presence in the area, and in 1803 Fort Dearborn was built on the south bank of the Chicago River. Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833, with a population of 340. Within three years, land speculation rocked the local real estate market; lots that had sold for US$33 in 1829 went for US$100,000. The boom was fueled by the start of construction on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, an inland waterway linking the Great Lakes to the Illinois River and thus to the Mississippi River and New Orleans. The swarms of laborers drawn by the canal construction swelled Chicago's population.
The canal opened in 1848, and commercial ships began to ply the Chicago River from the Caribbean to New York. One of the city's great financial institutions, the Chicago Board of Trade, opened to handle the sale of grain by Illinois farmers, who had greatly improved access to Eastern markets thanks to the canal. Railroad construction absorbed workers freed from canal construction. By 1850, a line had been completed to serve grain farmers between Chicago and Galena, in western Illinois. A year later, the city gave the Illinois Central Railroad land for its tracks south of the city. It was the first land-grant railroad and was joined by many others, whose tracks eventually would radiate out from Chicago. The city quickly became the hub of America's freight and passenger trains, a status it would hold for the next hundred years.
Like other northern cities, Chicago profited from the Civil War, which boosted business in its burgeoning steel and tool-making industries and provided plenty of freight for the railroads and canal. In 1865, the year the war ended, an event took place that would profoundly affect the city for the next hundred years: the Union Stockyards opened on the South Side, unifying disparate meat operations scattered about the city. Chicago's rail network and the development of the iced refrigerator car meant that meat could be shipped east to New York, spurring the industry's consolidation. By the turn of the century, Chicago's population had swelled to almost 2 million.
In 1933, Ed Kelly became mayor. He strengthened the Democratic Party in the city, creating the legendary 'machine' that would control local politics for the next 50 years. Politicians doled out thousands of city jobs to people who worked hard to make sure their patrons were reelected. The zenith of the machine's power began with the election of Richard J Daley in 1955. Daley was reelected mayor five times before dying in office in 1976. With an uncanny understanding of machine politics, he dominated the city in a way no mayor had before or since.
In 1971, the last of the Chicago stockyards closed. Elsewhere in the city, factories and steel mills closed as companies moved to the suburbs or the southern US, where taxes and wages were lower. A decade of economic upheaval saw much of Chicago's industrial base erode. But two events happened in the 1970s that were harbingers of the city's future. The world's tallest building (at the time), the Sears Tower, opened in the Loop in 1974, beginning a development trend that would spur the creation of thousands of high-paying jobs in finance, law and other areas. And in 1975 the Water Tower Place shopping mall opened downtown and developers began to realize that the urban environment was an attraction in itself.
In the fall of 1982, a Who's Who of black Chicago gathered to propel Harold Washington, Chicago's first African American mayor - and a reformist, to boot - into office. Much of the political and social chaos that marked the years from 1983 to 1987 had ugly racial overtones, but at the heart of the conflict was the old guard refusing to cede any power or patronage to the reform-minded mayor. The irony is that when Washington died, seven months after he was reelected in 1987, he and his allies were just beginning to enjoy the same spoils of the machine they had once battled.
Hyde Park
Hyde Park is an enclave within the city. Much of its existence is owed to the University of Chicago, a school where graduate students outnumber undergrads and 18 Nobel prizes for economics have sat on the trophy shelf since the award was first presented in 1969.
The bookish residents give the place a pleasant, insulated, small-town air, which is remarkable considering the blighted neighborhoods to the west and south. The major attraction for most visitors is the Museum of Science and Industry, which is dedicated to high-tech gadgets. It also features some bizarre body exhibits, including a transparent dissected female mannequin and a preserved man and woman whose bodies have been cut into thin cross sections.
Another worthwhile attraction is Robie House, Frank Lloyd Wright's poster Prairie-style house, designed in 1910. The house's rooms cluster around a central hearth, which may sound cosy but the neighbors hated it, Mr Robie's wife left him and Mr Robie went broke. Today, the house belongs to the university and is open to the public.
Chicago is served by two main airports: O'Hare International (ORD), 20 miles (32km) northwest of downtown, is the world's busiest air hub; Midway (MDW),10 miles (16km) southwest of downtown, is much smaller and is primarily served by discount carriers. Sixty-five million passengers a year - one quarter of the population of the United States - pass through O'Hare each year, continuing Chicago's historic role as a US transportation hub. Each day flights depart to close to 300 cities worldwide, a figure unmatched by any other airport anywhere.
The sole national bus line, called 'The Dog' by veteran riders, Greyhound has dozens of buses a day departing in every direction. Conditions are not posh, but neither are the prices. Indian Trails is a regional line operating buses similar to Greyhound's.
Chicago is the hub for Amtrak's national and regional train service, so it has more service than any other city. Amtrak's three trains from Chicago to the West Coast can be vacation experiences in themselves and travel to Seattle and Portland, passing through the northern Rockies and Montana. Others pass through dramatic canyons in both the Rockies in Colorado and the Sierra Nevada in California. Long-distance trains serve Texas, Washington DC, Boston and New York. Short-distance trains run more than once a day and go to Detroit, St Louis, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids, Michigan. During much of the year it's crucial to have your Amtrak journey reserved well in advance.