LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a 17th century French explorer of the Illinois Country. The portion that runs through the Chicago Loop is considered to be Chicago's financial district.
from the old Chicago Board of Trade Building (May 15, 1916)
The Chicago Board of Trade Building (center), the Continental Illinois Building (left) and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (right)
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was a 17th-century French explorer and fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, and the Mississippi River. He is best known for an early 1682 expedition in which he canoed the lower Mississippi River from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf of Mexico; there, on 9 April 1682, he claimed the Mississippi River basin for France after giving it the name La Louisiane. One source states that "he acquired for France the most fertile half of the North American continent". A later ill-fated expedition to the Gulf coast of Mexico gave the United States a claim to Texas in the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803. La Salle was assassinated
in 1687 during that expedition.
A 19th-century engraving of Cavelier de La Salle
Depiction of La Salle inspecting the reconstruction of Fort Frontenac, 1675. Painting by John David Kelly.
Color reproduction of Taking possession of Louisiana and the River Mississippi, in the name of Louis XIVth by Jean-Adolphe Bocquin.
Painting by Theodore Gudin titled La Salle's Expedition to Louisiana in 1684. The ship on the left is La Belle, in the middle is Le Joly, and L'Aimable is to the right. They are at the entrance to Matagorda Bay