Overview
- The name “Chicago” was first recorded in 1688 as “Chigagou,” an Algonquian term meaning “onion field.”
- In 1779, Haitian-born trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable settled with his Potawatomi wife Kittihawa at the post that became Chicago, honored today by DuSable Lake Shore Drive, DuSable Bridge, and the DuSable Museum of African American History.
- Chicago was incorporated as a town in 1833 and as a city in 1837.
- The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed about a third of the city and left 100,000 homeless; the surviving Water Tower and Pumping Station on Michigan Avenue now house City Gallery and Lookingglass Theatre.
- The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park helped launch the City Beautiful movement, and in 1900, Chicago reversed the river to flow toward the Mississippi—an artery famously dyed green each St. Patrick’s Day.
