1.
National Register of Historic Places
–
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
National Register of Historic Places
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Logo used for the NRHP.
National Register of Historic Places
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Old Slater Mill, a historic district in
Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was the first property listed in the National Register on November 13, 1966.
National Register of Historic Places
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The
Loren Andrus Octagon House in
Washington, Michigan has been on the NRHP since September 3, 1971.
National Register of Historic Places
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Built in 1800 by
Samuel McIntire in
Salem, the
Stephen Phillips House is operated as a
historic house museum by
Historic New England and open for public tours.
2.
National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S
National Historic Landmark
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USS Constitution
National Historic Landmark
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Frank Lloyd Wright 's
Taliesin is a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
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The
American Legation in Tangiers, Morocco, was the first National Historic Landmark on foreign soil.
National Historic Landmark
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Navajo Nation Council Chamber, the seat of government for the
Navajo Nation,
Window Rock, Arizona.
3.
Joliet, Illinois
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Joliet is a city in Kendall and Will counties in the U. S. state of Illinois,40 miles southwest of Chicago. It is the county seat of Will County, at the 2010 census, the city was the fourth largest in Illinois, with a population of 147,433. A special census done in 2016 puts Joliets population at 149,395 making it the 3rd largest city in Illinois, in 1833, following the Black Hawk War, Charles Reed built a cabin along the west side of the Des Plaines River. Across the river in 1834, James B, campbell, treasurer of the canal commissioners, laid out the village of Juliet, a name local settlers had been using before his arrival. Maps from Jolliets exploration of the area, placed a large hill or mound on what is now the southwest corner of the city and that hill was named Mound Jolliet. The spot was mined by early settlers and is now a depression, just before the economic depression of 1837, Juliet incorporated as a village, but to cut tax expenses, Juliet residents soon petitioned the state to rescind that incorporation. In 1845, local residents changed the name from Juliet to Joliet. Joliet was reincorporated as a city in 1852, cornelius Cohenhoven Van Horne was active in getting the city its first charter, and because of this he was elected Joliets first Mayor. When the city built a new bridge it was named The Van Horne Bridge. Joliet is located at 41°31′14″N 88°09′02″W, according to the 2010 census, Joliet has a total area of 62.768 square miles, of which 62.11 square miles is land and 0.658 square miles is water. It has a sprawling, irregular shape that extends into nine different townships and they are, Joliet, Plainfield, Troy, New Lenox, Jackson, Channahon, and Lockport in Will County, and Na-Au-Say and Seward in Kendall County. Joliet is a Des Plaines River town, with the located in the river valley. This is especially evident on Interstate 80 if one is coming from the east or the west where it has been flat for many miles and this offers a great view looking north to see downtown Joliet. For most of its existence Joliet geographically has had its west side and east side, referring to areas to the west or the east of the Des Plaines River, which runs through the city. Both sides were roughly proportionate throughout most of its history until the 2nd half of the 20th century when westward expansion began, many businesses moved from the downtown area to the expanding areas west of the river. Many stores relocated to the west side in new strip malls and shopping centers with more parking and this began the decline of the downtown shopping district which is still felt today. Today Joliet has a west side and a far west side and this has given rise to a newly referenced Central Joliet portion of the city which essentially is all land west of the Des Plaines River and east of Interstate 55. This new reference may soon change the current meaning of west side to west of Interstate 55, while the heart and history of Joliet is centered around the Des Plaines River Joliet actually expands across both the Des Plaines River and the DuPage River
Joliet, Illinois
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Downtown scene
Joliet, Illinois
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Joliet Veteran's Memorial Bicentennial Park
Joliet, Illinois
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The
Rialto Square Theatre in downtown Joliet
Joliet, Illinois
–
Silver Cross Field
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
5.
Great Lakes (North America)
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Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth, containing 21% of the worlds surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is 94,250 square miles, and the volume is 5,439 cubic miles. Due to their sea-like characteristics the five Great Lakes have also long been referred to as inland seas, Lake Superior is the second largest lake in the world by area, and Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country. The southern half of the Great Lakes is bordered by the Great Lakes Megalopolis, the lakes have been a major highway for transportation, migration and trade, and they are home to a large number of aquatic species. Many invasive species have been introduced due to trade, and some threaten the regions biodiversity, though the five lakes reside in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. The lakes form a chain connecting the interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, the lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several smaller lakes, often called inland lakes. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the area of the entire basin is about the size of the UK. Lake Michigan is the one of the Great Lakes that is located entirely within the United States. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U. S. states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Both Ontario and Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes, Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, New York and Wisconsins jurisdictions extend into two lakes, and the remaining states into one of the lakes. This designation, however, is not universal and those living on the shore of Lake Superior often refer to all the other lakes as the lower lakes, because they are farther south. This corresponds to thinking of Lakes Erie and Ontario as down south, vessels sailing north on Lake Michigan are considered upbound even though they are sailing toward its effluent current. The Chicago River and Calumet River systems connect the Great Lakes Basin to the Mississippi River System through man-made alterations, the St. Marys River, including the Soo Locks, connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. The Straits of Mackinac connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron, the St. Clair River connects Lake Huron to Lake St. Clair. The Detroit River connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie, the Niagara River, including Niagara Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The Welland Canal, bypassing the Falls, connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River connects Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which connects to the Atlantic Ocean
Great Lakes (North America)
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Satellite image of the Great Lakes, April 24, 2000, with lake names added
Great Lakes (North America)
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Terra
MODIS image of the Great Lakes, January 27, 2005, showing ice beginning to build up around the shores of each of the lakes, with snow on the ground.
Great Lakes (North America)
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Photograph of Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron plus the
Finger Lakes of upstate New York, June 14, 2012, taken aboard the
International Space Station, with lake names added
Great Lakes (North America)
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Toronto on Lake Ontario is in the eastern section of the
Great Lakes Megalopolis
6.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
Mississippi River
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Mississippi River near Fire Point in
Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa
Mississippi River
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Detailed map of Mississippi River tributary structure
Mississippi River
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The beginning of the Mississippi River at
Lake Itasca (2004)
Mississippi River
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Mississippi head of navigation, Coon Rapids Dam
7.
Gulf of Mexico
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The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U. S. states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas border the Gulf on the north, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or sometimes the south coast, in juxtaposition to the Great Lakes region being the north coast. One of the seven main areas is the Gulf of Mexico basin. The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics, the Gulfs basin is roughly oval and is approximately 810 nautical miles wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U. S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, with the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km2, almost half of the basin is shallow continental shelf waters. The basin contains a volume of roughly 2,500 quadrillion liters, the consensus among geologists who have studied the geology of the Gulf of Mexico, is that prior to the Late Triassic, the Gulf of Mexico did not exist. It was created by the collision of plates that formed Pangea. As interpreted by Roy Van Arsdale and Randel T. Cox, geologists and other Earth scientists agree in general that the present Gulf of Mexico basin originated in Late Triassic time as the result of rifting within Pangea. The rifting was associated with zones of weakness within Pangea, including sutures where the Laurentia, South American, first, there was a Late Triassic-Early Jurassic phase of rifting during which rift valleys formed and filled with continental red beds. Second, as rifting progressed through Early and Middle Jurassic time and it was at this time that tectonics first created a connection to the Pacific Ocean across central Mexico and later eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. This flooded the basin created by rifting and crustal thinning to create the Gulf of Mexico. While the Gulf of Mexico was a basin, the subsiding transitional crust was blanketed by the widespread deposition of Louann Salt. Initially, during the Late Jurassic, continued rifting widened the Gulf of Mexico and progressed to the point that sea-floor spreading, at this point, sufficient circulation with the Atlantic Ocean was established that the deposition of Louann Salt ceased. During the Late Jurassic through Early Cretaceous, the occupied by the Gulf of Mexico experienced a period of cooling. The subsidence was the result of a combination of stretching, cooling. Initially, the combination of stretching and cooling caused about 5–7 km of tectonic subsidence of the central thin transitional
Gulf of Mexico
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Sediment in the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
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Undersea
topography of the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
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Fishing boats in
Biloxi
Gulf of Mexico
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Gulf beach near Sabine Pass
8.
Illinois
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Illinois is a state in the midwestern region of the United States, achieving statehood in 1818. It is the 6th most populous state and 25th largest state in terms of land area, the word Illinois comes from a French rendering of a native Algonquin word. For decades, OHare International Airport has been ranked as one of the worlds busiest airports, Illinois has long had a reputation as a bellwether both in social and cultural terms and politics. With the War of 1812 Illinois growth slowed as both Native Americans and Canadian forces often raided the American Frontier, mineral finds and timber stands also had spurred immigration—by the 1810s, the Eastern U. S. Railroads arose and matured in the 1840s, and soon carried immigrants to new homes in Illinois, as well as being a resource to ship their commodity crops out to markets. Railroads freed most of the land of Illinois and other states from the tyranny of water transport. By 1900, the growth of jobs in the northern cities and coal mining in the central and southern areas attracted a new group of immigrants. Illinois was an important manufacturing center during both world wars, the Great Migration from the South established a large community of African Americans in Chicago, who created the citys famous jazz and blues cultures. Three U. S. presidents have been elected while living in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, additionally, Ronald Reagan, whose political career was based in California, was the only U. S. president born and raised in Illinois. Today, Illinois honors Lincoln with its official slogan, Land of Lincoln. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum is located in the capital of Springfield. Illinois is the spelling for the early French Catholic missionaries and explorers name for the Illinois Native Americans. American scholars previously thought the name Illinois meant man or men in the Miami-Illinois language and this etymology is not supported by the Illinois language, as the word for man is ireniwa and plural men is ireniwaki. The name Illiniwek has also said to mean tribe of superior men. The name Illinois derives from the Miami-Illinois verb irenwe·wa he speaks the regular way and this was taken into the Ojibwe language, perhaps in the Ottawa dialect, and modified into ilinwe·. The French borrowed these forms, changing the ending to spell it as -ois. The current spelling form, Illinois, began to appear in the early 1670s, the Illinois name for themselves, as attested in all three of the French missionary-period dictionaries of Illinois, was Inoka, of unknown meaning and unrelated to the other terms. American Indians of successive cultures lived along the waterways of the Illinois area for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the Koster Site has been excavated and demonstrates 7,000 years of continuous habitation
Illinois
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Mississippian copper plate found at the Saddle Site in
Union County, Illinois
Illinois
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Flag
Illinois
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Illinois in 1718, approximate modern state area highlighted, from Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississipi by
Guillaume de L'Isle.
Illinois
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Native women and children fleeing the
Battle of Bad Axe during the
Black Hawk War
9.
Chicago River
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The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 miles that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center. The River is also noteworthy for its natural and man-made history, in 1999, this system was named a Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The river is memorialized, in part, by two blue stripes on the Municipal Flag of Chicago. The source of the North Branch is in the suburbs of Chicago where its three principal tributaries converge. The Skokie River—or East Fork—rises from an area, historically a wetland, near Park City. It then flows southward, paralleling the edge of Lake Michigan, through wetlands, the Greenbelt Forest Preserve, South of Highland Park the river passes the Chicago Botanic Gardens and through an area of former marshlands known as the Skokie Lagoons. The Middle Fork arises near Rondout, Illinois and flows southwards through Lake Forest and these two tributaries merge at Watersmeet Woods west of Wilmette. From there the North Branch flows south towards Morton Grove, the West Fork rises near Mettawa and flows south through Bannockburn, Deerfield, and Northbrook, meeting the North Branch at Morton Grove. South of Belmont the North Branch is lined with a mixture of residential developments, retail parks, the North Branch Canal—or Ogdens Canal—was completed in 1857, and was originally 50 feet wide and 10 feet deep allowing craft navigating the river to avoid the bend. The 1902 Cherry Avenue Bridge, just south of North Avenue, was constructed to carry the Chicago, Milwaukee and it is a rare example of an asymmetric bob-tail swing bridge and was designated a Chicago Landmark in 2007. From Goose Island the North Branch continues to south east to Wolf Point where it joins the Main Stem. The source of the Main Stem of the Chicago River is Lake Michigan, acoustic velocity meters at the Columbus Drive Bridge and the T. J. On the south bank of the river is the site of Fort Dearborn, notable buildings surrounding this area include the NBC Tower, the Tribune Tower, and the Wrigley Building. The river turns slightly to the south west between Michigan Avenue and State Street, passing the Trump International Hotel and Tower,35 East Wacker, turning west again the river passes Marina City, the Reid, Murdoch & Co. Building, and Merchandise Mart, and 333 Wacker Drive, since the early 2000s, the south shore of the Main Stem has been developed as the Chicago Riverwalk. It provides a linear, lushly landscaped park intended to offer an escape from the busy Loop. Different sections are named Market, Civic, Arcade, and Confluence, the sections between State Street and Lake Street are currently under construction and scheduled to be completed by the end of 2016. The plans reflect ideas first proposed by the Burnham Plan as early as 1909, the source of the South Branch of the Chicago River is the confluence of the North Branch and Main stem at Wolf Point
Chicago River
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Chicago River at night in August 2015
Chicago River
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A view of the Chicago River from the South Branch, looking toward the Main Stem (right) and the North Branch (upper left) at
Wolf Point
Chicago River
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Urban Kayakers take a break at Wolf Point with 333 West Wacker, Lake Street Bridge and the south skyline in the background
Chicago River
–
The Main Stem of the river,
Wrigley Building, and
Tribune Tower at night.
10.
Bridgeport, Chicago
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Neighboring community areas are the Lower West Side across the river to the north, McKinley Park to the west, Canaryville to the south, and Armour Square to the east. Bridgeport has been the home of five Chicago mayors, once known for its racial intolerance, Bridgeport today ranks as one of the citys most diverse neighborhoods. Historically, much of the neighborhood was initially an Irish-American enclave, in the 1830s, large numbers of immigrants from Ireland started settling in this working-class neighborhood. Many of the same Irish immigrants who helped build the Erie Canal later came to Chicago to work on the Illinois, because of inadequate funding for the project, the State of Illinois began issuing Land Scrip to the workers rather than paying them with money. A large number of those Irish-Americans who received the scrip used it to purchase canal-owned land at the end of the canal where it meets the south branch of the Chicago River. The original Bridgeport village, named Hardscrabble, centered on what is now the section of Throop Street north of 31st Street. The area later known as Bridgeport because of its proximity to a bridge on the Chicago River. Finley Peter Dunne later wrote about this area in popular sketches around the turn of the 20th century, dunnes protagonist, Mr. Dooley, lived on Archey Road. Although the Irish are Bridgeports oldest and arguably most famous ethnic group, Bridgeport is also home to many Italian-Americans, as is its smaller neighbor to the east, Armour Square. Bridgeports Polish history is most visibly represented in its two churches in the Polish Cathedral style, St. Mary of Perpetual Help, and St. Barbara. Kelly, Kennelly, the elder Daley, and Bilandic comprised an unbroken, Richard J. Daley is widely acknowledged as being the architect of the Chicagos machine politics for a large part of the 20th Century. Daleys base was rooted largely in Bridgeports working-class Irish population with the 11th Ward as his vanguard, alderman Thompson represents the third generation of the Daley family to serve in Chicago politics, he is the grandson of Richard J. Daley and the nephew of Richard M. Daley. Thompson was sworn into office in May 2015, residents are zoned to Tilden High School in the Canaryville neighborhood just south of Bridgeport. The Richard J. Daley Branch of the Chicago Public Library system is located at 3400 South Halsted Street, source, In 2008 the Chicago Sun-Times listed Bridgeport as one of the four most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Chicago, alongside Albany Park, West Ridge, and Rogers Park. A traditionally working-class neighborhood, with a diverse heritage, Bridgeports cultural history has left an indelible mark on Chicago cuisine. While pizza is well represented in Bridgeport, it is the breaded-steak sandwich served by most of the neighborhoods pizzerias, chinese and Mexican fare are also well represented, particularly along 31st Street, Halsted Street, and Archer Avenue. Bridgeport in the early 21st century has begun to experience an upswing in new restaurants. The neighborhood is served by the Bridgeport News, a community newspaper delivered weekly on Wednesdays to homes throughout the neighborhood, the area is served by the Chicago Transit Authoritys Orange Line at the Halsted and Ashland stations, although Ashland is a few blocks outside of the neighborhood
Bridgeport, Chicago
–
The White Eagle Brewing Company building in Bridgeport, designed by
John S. Flizikowski, once stood at the corner of W. 37th Street and Racine.
Bridgeport, Chicago
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35th and Halsted, Bridgeport, Chicago 2015
Bridgeport, Chicago
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Southwestward view from the platform of the Halsted Station on CTA's Orange Line. The outbound lanes of the
Stevenson Expressway (I-55 South) are visible on the left, passing over Archer Avenue.
11.
Chicago
–
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
Chicago
–
Clockwise from top:
Downtown Chicago, the
Chicago Theatre, the
'L',
Navy Pier,
Millennium Park, the
Field Museum, and the
Willis Tower.
Chicago
–
Traditional
Potawatomi costume on display at the
Field Museum
Chicago
–
A 1903 painting of Chicago in 1833
Chicago
–
An artist's rendering of the
Great Chicago Fire of 1871
12.
Illinois River
–
The Illinois River is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River, approximately 273 miles long, in the U. S. state of Illinois. The river drains a section of central Illinois, with a drainage basin of 28,756.6 square miles. The drainage basin extends into Wisconsin and Indiana and this river was important among Native Americans and early French traders as the principal water route connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi. The French colonial settlements along the formed the heart of the area known as the Illinois Country. It now forms the basis for the Illinois Waterway, the Illinois River is formed by the confluence of the Kankakee River and the Des Plaines River in eastern Grundy County, approximately 10 miles southwest of Joliet. This river flows west across northern Illinois, passing Morris and Ottawa, at LaSalle, the Illinois River is joined by the Vermilion River, and then it flows west past Peru, and Spring Valley. In southeastern Bureau County it turns south at a known as the Great Bend, flowing southwest across western Illinois, past Lacon, Henry and downtown Peoria. South of Peoria, the Illinois River goes by East Peoria and Creve Coeur and it is then joined by the Mackinaw River and then passes through the Chautauqua National Wildlife Refuge. The La Moine River flows into it approximately five miles southwest of Beardstown, near the confluence of the Illinois with the La Moine River, it turns south, flowing roughly parallel to the Mississippi across southwestern Illinois. Macoupin Creek joins the Illinois on the border between Greene and Jersey counties, approximately 15 miles upstream from the confluence with the Mississippi. For the last 20 miles of its course, the Illinois is separated from the Mississippi River by only five miles. The Illinois joins the Mississippi near Grafton, approximately 25 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis and about 20 miles upstream from the confluence of the Missouri River, south of Hennepin, the Illinois River is following the ancient channel of the Mississippi River. The Illinoian Stage, about 300,000 to 132,000 years ago, blocked the Mississippi near Rock Island, after the glacier melted, the Illinois River flowed into the ancient channel. The Hennepin Canal roughly follows the ancient channel of the Mississippi upstream of Rock Island, the modern channel of the Illinois River was shaped in a matter of days by the Kankakee Torrent. During the melting of the Wisconsin Glacier about 10,000 years ago, the lake formed behind the terminal moraine of a substage of that glacier. Melting ice to the north eventually raised the level of the lake so that it overflowed the moraine, the dam burst, and the entire volume of the lake was released in a very short time, perhaps a few days. Because of the manner of its formation, the Illinois River runs through a canyon with many rock formations. It has a channel, one far larger than would be needed to contain any conceivable flow in modern times
Illinois River
–
The Illinois River, as seen from
Starved Rock State Park. Notice the
dam in the left center portion of the picture.
Illinois River
–
Late October 2009 (before the flood).
Illinois River
–
Early November 2009 (during the flood).
Illinois River
–
The Illinois River as mapped in 1718, modern Illinois state highlighted.
13.
LaSalle, Illinois
–
LaSalle is a city in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States, located at the intersection of Interstates 39 and 80. It is part of the Ottawa-Peru, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area, originally platted in 1837 over one square mile, the citys boundaries have grown to 12 sq mi. City boundaries extend from the Illinois River and Illinois and Michigan Canal to a north of Interstate 80. Starved Rock State Park is located approximately 5 mi to the east, the population was 9,609 at the 2010 census, and was estimated to be 9,328 by July 2014. LaSalle and its city, Peru, make up the core of the Illinois Valley. Due to their dominance of the zinc processing industry in the early 1900s. LaSalle was named in honor of the early French explorer, Robert de LaSalle, the Illinois and Michigan Canal was first thought up by French explorer, Louis Joliet. Much later, when Illinois became a state, the idea of a canal connecting Lake Michigan to the Illinois River was supported by many, the 96 miles long canal was finally constructed between 1836 and 1848. Upon its completion, Chicago became the terminus and LaSalle became the western terminus. LaSalle boomed as a transshipment point from canal boats coming from Chicago to steamboats going to St. Louis and it became a place where Northern and Southern culture met. It is difficult to imagine the level of frenzied activity that took place at locks 14 and 15, where the canal boat basin. Steamboats from New Orleans unloaded molasses, sugar, coffee, and fresh oranges, Canal boats from Chicago brought lumber, stoves, wagons, and the latest clothing styles from the east. Local farmers hauled corn and wheat to be shipped to Chicago, passengers hustled to make connections to canal boats bound for Chicago or steamboats headed to St. Louis and beyond. Hotels and other services were available to travelers, many stores grew catering to canal trade. Today the story can be told at the La Salle Canal Boat, by the mid 1850s, LaSalle had begun to exploit the coal that lay underneath much of the city. The LaSalle Coal Mining Company completed the first shaft in 1856, by 1884 there were six shafts in the area, the deepest 452 feet. The history of LaSalle would have played out very differently were it not for the arrival of two immigrants in 1858, frederick William Matthiessen met German born Edward C. Hegeler at a mining school, and after graduating in 1856
LaSalle, Illinois
–
Downtown LaSalle, Illinois.
14.
Peru, Illinois
–
Peru is a city in LaSalle County, Illinois, United States. The population was 10,295 at the 2010 census and it is part of the Ottawa–Peru, IL Micropolitan Statistical Area. Peru and its city, LaSalle, make up the core of Illinois Valley. Peru is located at 41°20′4″N 89°7′39″W, according to the 2010 census, Peru has a total area of 9.068 square miles, of which 8.96 square miles is land and 0.108 square miles is water. Located on the Illinois River, Peru lies 3 miles west of the intersection of two interstate highways, Interstate 39 and Interstate 80. The city is also the terminus of the historic Illinois. Before the Illinois Waterway was constructed, the Illinois River was navigable only up to Peru, starved Rock State Park, a regional tourist attraction, is located 5 miles south-east of the community. Peru has a city on its eastern edge, LaSalle. As of the census of 2000, there were 9,835 people,4,143 households, the population density was 1,655.5 people per square mile. There were 4,413 housing units at a density of 742.8 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 96. 47% White,0. 32% African American,0. 18% Native American,1. 11% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,1. 16% from other races, and 0. 75% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4. 08% of the population,31. 5% of all households were made up of individuals and 15. 5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.33 and the family size was 2.93. In the city the population was out with 22. 0% under the age of 18,7. 5% from 18 to 24,27. 3% from 25 to 44,21. 9% from 45 to 64. The median age was 41 years, for every 100 females there were 89.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.9 males, the median income for a household in the city was $37,060, and the median income for a family was $48,180. Males had an income of $39,722 versus $21,961 for females. The per capita income for the city was $20,658, about 4. 8% of families and 7. 5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12. 8% of those under age 18 and 4. 7% of those age 65 or over
Peru, Illinois
–
Aerial view of Peru, Illinois
Peru, Illinois
Peru, Illinois
–
The
Maud Powell monument that stands on 4th Street in Peru
Peru, Illinois
–
The Illinois Valley Community Hospital in Peru, Illinois
15.
Chicago Portage
–
The Chicago Portage is a water gap connecting the watersheds and the navigable waterways of the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. The official flag of the City of Chicago includes four red stars symbolizing city history, a principal feature of the Chicago Portage water gap is that water can flow through it in either direction across the continental divide. It has flowed from east to west, west to east, there have been two long-term reversals, and short-term reversals still happen today. Initially, water flowed from east to west starting about 10,000 years ago, about 3,000 years ago, this flow mostly stopped, and the Chicago Portage became a wind gap, except during floods when it flowed from west to east. In the year 1900, it was reversed to flow continuously from east to west. The Chicago Portage was formed as the Wisconsin glaciation retreated northward about 10,000 years ago and this was a substantial river, carving the channel later used by the main and south branches of the Chicago River, and the Des Plaines River. Until perhaps 3,000 years ago, the lakes had two outlets, one at Chicago, and the other via the St. Clair River at Port Huron. Eventually the St. Clair River outlet eroded slightly more quickly and this location is now 3100 West 31st Street in Chicago. The portage was revealed to Europeans in 1673 when the French explorers, Louis Joliet and they were guided to the portage by local Native Americans and continued along the Illinois and Des Plaines Rivers. Near where the Des Plaines was separated from the Chicago River they encountered an area known as Mud Lake. Seasonally, this was a waterway or a muddy slough of 8 miles. This connected the Des Plaines to the Chicago River, which flowed into Lake Michigan. At the time, the Chicago Portage was the most strategic location in the interior of the North American continent, control of the Portage was critical if the French were to contain English expansion in the New World. According to Joliet, a canal of half a league across the Chicago Portage would allow easy navigation from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, in 1848, the Illinois and Michigan Canal was opened, breaching the water divide and enabling navigation between the two waterways. In 1900 it was replaced by the larger Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, after the Chicago River was reversed and diverted to the new canal, the Mississippi watershed is now separated from the Great Lakes by only the Chicago Locks. The quantity of water allowed to pass is regulated by the U. S. and this remnant was left behind when the water level of Lake Michigan-Huron dropped as the St. Clair River captured the flow of the Chicago Outlet River. Mud Lake could be wet, dry, marshy, or frozen, depending on the season and it was drained in several stages, starting with the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1848, which bisected it. Several other attempts were made to drain Mud Lake, with the Chicago Sanitary, a small remnant of Mud Lake still exists as a wetland area in Forest View, between the Stevenson Expressway, railroad tracks, and West 51st Street, near the Forest View water tower
Chicago Portage
–
Maps of the Chicago Portage, on a sign at Chicago Portage National Historic Site
Chicago Portage
–
Chicago Portage
Chicago Portage
–
Map of Chicago Portage
Chicago Portage
–
The Portage waterway at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site in March
16.
Railroad
–
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
Railroad
–
Four
BNSF GE C44-9W diesel locomotives hauling a mixed freight train along the banks of the
Columbia River, between
Kennewick and
Wishram,
Washington State, United States
Railroad
–
Horsecar in
Brno, Czech Republic
Railroad
–
A British steam locomotive-hauled train
Railroad
–
Tren a las Nubes (Train to the Clouds), located in
Salta,
Argentina
17.
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
–
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, historically known as the Chicago Drainage Canal, is a 28-mile-long canal system that connects the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. It reverses the direction of the Main Stem and the South Branch of the Chicago River, the related Calumet-Saganashkee Channel does the same for the Calumet River a short distance to the south, joining the Chicago canal about half way along its route to the Des Plaines. The two provide the navigation for ships between the Great Lakes Waterway and the Mississippi River system. The canal was built as a sewage treatment scheme. Prior to its opening in 1900, sewage from the city of Chicago was dumped into the Chicago River, the citys drinking water supply was located offshore, and there were fears that the sewage could reach the intake and cause serious disease outbreaks. As part of the construction of the new canal, the route was built to allow much larger ships to navigate it. It is 202 feet wide and 24 feet deep, over three times the size of the I&M, the I&M became a secondary route with the new canals opening, and was shut down entirely with the creation of the Illinois Waterway network in 1933. The canal is operated by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, in 1999, the system was named a Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Canal was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 20,2011, early Chicago sewage systems discharged directly into Lake Michigan or into the Chicago River, which itself flowed into the lake. The citys water supply came from the lake, through water intake cribs located two miles offshore. There were fears that sewage could infiltrate the supply, leading to typhoid fever, cholera. During a tremendous storm in 1885, the rainfall washed refuse from the far out into the lake. The only reason for the storm not causing such an event was that the weather was cooler than normal. The Sanitary District of Chicago was created by the Illinois legislature in 1889 in response to this close call, in addition, the canal was built to supplement and ultimately replace the older and smaller Illinois and Michigan Canal as a conduit to the Mississippi River system. In 1871, the old canal had been deepened in an attempt to reverse the river and improve shipping, the I&M canal was also badly polluted as a result of unrestricted dumping from city sewers and industries, such as the stockyards. By 1887, it was decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River through civil engineering, Engineer Isham Randolph noted that a ridge about 12 miles from the lake shore divided the Mississippi River drainage system from the Great Lakes drainage system. This low divide had been known since pre-Columbian time by the Native Americans, the Illinois and Michigan Canal was cut across that divide in the 1840s. A plan soon emerged to cut through that ridge and carry water away from the lake, through the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers, to the Mississippi River
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
–
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal (at the time named the Chicago Drainage Canal) being built
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
–
Construction of the Chicago Drainage Canal, 1900s
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
–
The canal at
Willow Springs, Illinois, 1904
Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
–
Lock and dam at
Lockport
18.
Illinois Waterway
–
The Illinois Waterway system consists of 336 miles of water from the mouth of the Calumet River to the mouth of the Illinois River at Grafton, Illinois. It is a system of rivers, lakes, and canals which provide a connection from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico via the Illinois. The Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1849, in 1900, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal replaced it and reversed the flow of the Chicago River so it no longer flowed into Lake Michigan. The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains a 9-foot-deep navigation channel in the waterway, the waterways complex northern section is referred to in various contexts for study and management as the Chicago Area Waterway System. A series of eight locks, managed by the Army Corps of Engineers, oBrien, is 7 miles from Lake Michigan on the Calumet River and the last lock is 90 miles upstream from the Mississippi River at the LaGrange lock and dam. The amount of released into the Illinois often is a sore point among lake. When Lake Michigan water levels are high, lake interests want to increase the flow, and that is why an international treaty regulates the flow, as Canada also has an interest in Lake Michigan levels which eventually flow into the Lakes Erie, Huron, and Ontario. Primary cargoes are coal to powerplants, chemicals and petroleum upstream and corn, some winters ice floes, especially around the locks and dams, preclude towboats and barges from navigating the Illinois. The schematic below illustrates the drop of the Illinois Waterway from 578 feet above sea level at Lake Michigan to 419 feet at the Mississippi River at Grafton, the eight locks and dams on the waterway provide the lift for traffic along the waterway. US Army Corp of Engineers Illinois Waterway Fact Sheet Hay, Jerry, Illinois Waterway Guidebook, 1st Edition, ISBN 978-1-60743-856-4 Historic American Engineering Record No
Illinois Waterway
–
The Illinois Waterway at Starved Rock Lock and Dam
Illinois Waterway
–
Starved Rock Lock and Dam on the Illinois Waterway
Illinois Waterway
–
T. J. O’Brien Lock and Dam on the Calumet River, which is part of the Illinois Waterway. The dam is located in Chicago.
19.
Lockport, Illinois
–
Lockport is a city in Will County, Illinois, United States, located 30 miles southwest of Chicago. Lockport was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 12,1975, the city was incorporated in 1853 and is situated along the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Recently, it was named one of the suburbs in America. The scenic golf course, walking paths, vintage downtown, parks and recreation, Lockport was the headquarters of the operationally defunct Illinois and Michigan Canal. A section of the runs through Lockport, including the remains of the canals Lock No.1 from which the town received its name. The canal right-of-way is now the Illinois and Michigan National Heritage Corridor, because of proactive efforts dating back several years, the city of Lockport is one of the best-preserved Canal sites in existence today. Illinois is the nation’s most populous inland state and its successful growth is due in large part to the Illinois and Michigan Canal, a revolutionary development that linked the Great Lakes to the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. The Des Plaines River Valley was a site for the Des Plaines River for the Miami and Potawatomi. Lockport is located at 41°35′19″N 88°2′50″W, which touches the village of Lemont. The city, along with Homer Township within the city limits, although the population was 15,191 at the 2000 census, a special census of 2003 counted 25,191 people,13,599 households, and 12,137 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,144.3 people per square mile, there were 5,835 housing units at an average density of 823.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 95. 82% White,1. 11% African American,0. 22% Native American,0. 75% Asian,0. 01% Pacific Islander,0. 94% from other races, and 1. 15% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4. 34% of the population,20. 8% of all households were made up of individuals and 6. 9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.71 and the family size was 3.17. In the city, the population was out with 28. 2% under the age of 18,7. 7% from 18 to 24,36. 1% from 25 to 44,18. 0% from 45 to 64. The median age was 33 years, for every 100 females there were 96.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.1 male The median income for a household in the city was $72,231, males had a median income of $65,759 versus $42,551 for females. The per capita income for the city was $32,939, about 3. 2% of families and 3. 5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4. 3% of those under age 18 and 1. 2% of those age 65 or over
Lockport, Illinois
–
A portion of downtown Lockport, 2010
Lockport, Illinois
–
Lock #1, Lockport, IL
20.
Canals
–
Canals and navigations are human-made channels for water conveyance, or to service water transport vehicles. In the vernacular, both are referred to as canals, and in most cases, the works will have a series of dams. These areas are referred to as water levels, often just called levels. In contrast, a canal cuts across a drainage divide atop a ridge, many canals have been built at elevations towering over valleys and others water ways crossing far below. Cities need a lot of water and many canals with sources of water at a higher level can deliver water to a destination where there is a lack of water. The Roman Empires Aqueducts were such water supply canals, a navigation is a series of channels that run roughly parallel to the valley and stream bed of an unimproved river. A navigation always shares the drainage basin of the river, a vessel uses the calm parts of the river itself as well as improvements, traversing the same changes in height. A true canal is a channel that cuts across a drainage divide, most commercially important canals of the first half of the 19th century were a little of each, using rivers in long stretches, and divide crossing canals in others. This is true for many canals still in use, there are two broad types of canal, Waterways, canals and navigations used for carrying vessels transporting goods and people. These can be subdivided into two kinds, Those connecting existing lakes, rivers, other canals or seas and oceans and those connected in a city network, such as the Canal Grande and others of Venice Italy, the gracht of Amsterdam, and the waterways of Bangkok. Aqueducts, water canals that are used for the conveyance and delivery of potable water for human consumption, municipal uses, hydro power canals. Historically canals were of importance to commerce and the development, growth. In 1855 the Lehigh Canal carried over 1.2 million tons of burning anthracite coal, by the 1930s the company which built. By the early 1880s, canals which had little ability to compete with rail transport, were off the map. In the next couple of decades, coal was diminished as the heating fuel of choice by oil. Later, after World War I when motor-trucks came into their own, Canals are built in one of three ways, or a combination of the three, depending on available water and available path, Human made streams A canal can be created where no stream presently exists. Either the body of the canal is dug or the sides of the canal are created by making dykes or levees by piling dirt, stone, the water for the canal must be provided from an external source, like streams or reservoirs. Where the new waterway must change elevation engineering works like locks, lifts or elevators are constructed to raise, examples include canals that connect valleys over a higher body of land, like Canal du Midi, Canal de Briare and the Panama Canal
Canals
–
The Alter Strom, in the sea resort of
Warnemünde, Germany.
Canals
–
The
Royal Canal in Ireland.
Canals
–
Small boat canals such as the
Basingstoke Canal fueled the industrial revolution in much of Europe and the United States.
Canals
–
Loading
Anthracite on the
Lehigh Canal to feed the early United States industries in the pioneer-era.
21.
Mississippi Basin
–
The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
Mississippi Basin
–
Mississippi River near Fire Point in
Effigy Mounds National Monument, Iowa
Mississippi Basin
–
Detailed map of Mississippi River tributary structure
Mississippi Basin
–
The beginning of the Mississippi River at
Lake Itasca (2004)
Mississippi Basin
–
Mississippi head of navigation, Coon Rapids Dam
22.
Great Lakes Basin
–
The basin is home to 33 million people. The basin hosts eight of Canadas 20 largest cities, including Toronto, Hamilton, London, St. Catharines, Niagara, Oshawa, Windsor, and Barrie. The United States cities of Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, each individual lake forms a sub-basin, such as the Lake Erie Basin, and each sub-basin consists of multiple watersheds, such as Pennsylvanias Lake Erie Watershed. The overall Great Lakes Basin is monitored by the binational Great Lakes Commission, Quebec, a portion of whose lands drain into the St. Lawrence Basin, is a signatory to the Great Lakes Charter of 1985, the 2001 Charter Annex, and the Agreements of 2005. While not a part of the Great Lakes Basin, Quebecs position along the Saint Lawrence Seaway makes it a partner in water management with Ontario. There are 38 nuclear power plants in the Great Lakes Basin, the influence of these power plants and the waste they produce must be combined to ascertain the impact on the Great Lakes Basin. Great Lakes Commission Hydrographic Regions of Quebec
Great Lakes Basin
–
Main lakes
Great Lakes Basin
–
Map of the Great Lakes Basin.
23.
Erie Canal
–
The Erie Canal is a canal in New York that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System. Originally, it ran about 363 miles from Albany, on the Hudson River, to Buffalo and it was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. First proposed in the 1780s, then re-proposed in 1807, a survey was authorized, funded, proponents of the project gradually wore down opponents, its construction began in 1817. The canal has 35 numbered locks, plus the Federal Black Rock Lock, and it opened on October 26,1825. In a time when bulk goods were limited to pack animals and it was faster than carts pulled by draft animals, and cut transport costs by about 95%. The canal fostered a population surge in western New York and opened regions farther west to settlement and it was enlarged between 1834 and 1862. The canals peak year was 1855, when 33,000 commercial shipments took place. In 1918, the part of the canal was enlarged to become part of the New York State Barge Canal, which ran parallel to the eastern half of the Erie Canal. Mainly used by recreational watercraft since the retirement of the last large ship, the Day Peckinpaugh in 1994. This was not unique to the Americas, and the still exists in those parts of the world where muscle power provides a primary means of transportation within a region. An equally ancient solution was implemented in many cultures — things in the water weighed far less, passengers and freight had to travel overland, a journey made more difficult by the rough condition of the roads. In 1800, it typically took 2.5 weeks to travel overland from New York to Cleveland, the principal exportable product of the Ohio Valley was grain, which was a high-volume, low-priced commodity, bolstered by supplies from the coast. Frequently it was not worth the cost of transporting it to far-away population centers and this was a factor leading to farmers in the west turning their grains into whiskey for easier transport and higher sales, and later the Whiskey Rebellion. In time, projects were devised in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, the successes of the Canal du Midi in France, Bridgewater Canal in Britain, and Eiderkanal in Denmark spurred on what was called in Britain canal mania. Two men, Gouverneur Morris and Elkanah Watson, were proponents of a canal along the Mohawk River. Their efforts led to the creation of the Western and Northern Inland Lock Navigation Companies in 1792, by 1788, Washingtons Potomac Company was successful in constructing five locks which took boats 4,500 feet past the Potomac Great Falls. However, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal superseded the Potomac Canal in 1823, christopher Colles surveyed the Mohawk Valley, and made a presentation to the New York state legislature in 1784, proposing a shorter canal from Lake Ontario. The proposal drew attention and some action, but was never implemented, jesse Hawley finally got the canal built
Erie Canal
–
Operations at
Lockport, New York in 1839
Erie Canal
–
Erie Canal map c. 1840
Erie Canal
–
The
Mohawk Valley, running east and west, cuts a natural pathway (
wind gap) between the
Catskill Mountains to the south and the
Adirondack Mountains to the north
Erie Canal
–
Aqueduct over the
Mohawk River at
Rexford, one of 32
navigable aqueducts on the Erie Canal
24.
American Northeast
–
The Northeast is one of the four regions defined by the Census Bureau for the collection and analysis of statistics. The Census Bureau-defined region has an area of 181,324 sq mi with 162,257 square miles of that being land mass. Though lacking a unified identity, the Northeastern region is the nations most economically developed, densely populated. Of the nations four census regions, the Northeast is the second most urban, with 85 percent of its residing in urban areas. The region is subdivided into New England and the Mid-Atlantic States and this definition has been essentially unchanged since 1880 and is widely used as a standard for data tabulation. C. Similarly, the Geological Society of America defines the Northeast as these same states but with the addition of Maryland, the narrowest definitions include only the states of New England. Other more restrictive definitions include New England and New York as part of the Northeast United States, States beyond the Census Bureau definition that other entities include in the Northeast United States are, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, D. C. Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D. C. and West Virginia Delaware, Maryland, Washington, most did not settle in North America until the 17th century. Among the many tribes that inhabited this area were those made up the Iroquois nations. In the United States of the 21st century,18 federally recognized tribes reside in the Northeast, the two cultural and geographic regions that form parts of the Northeastern region have distinct histories. The first Europeans to settle New England were Pilgrims from England, the Pilgrims arrived by the Mayflower ship and founded Plymouth Colony so they could practice religion freely. Ten years later, a group of Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston to form Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1636, colonists established Connecticut Colony and Providence Plantations, Providence was founded by Roger Williams, who was banished by Massachusetts for his beliefs in freedom of religion, and it was the first colony to guarantee all citizens freedom of worship. Anne Hutchinson, who was banished by Massachusetts, formed the town of Portsmouth. Providence, Portsmouth, and two towns consolidated to form the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Although the first settlers of New England were motivated by religion, in recent history. In a 2009 Gallup survey, less than half of residents in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts reported religion as an important part of their daily life. In a 2010 Gallup survey, less than 30% of residents in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New England played a prominent role in early American education
American Northeast
–
High Point Monument as seen from Lake Marcia at High Point,
Sussex County, the
highest elevation in New Jersey at 1803 feet above sea level
American Northeast
–
The states shown in the two darkest red shades are included in the
United States Census Bureau Northeast Region, with states in lighter shades included in other regional definitions (see
Composition).
American Northeast
–
Cape Cod Bay, a leading tourist destination in Massachusetts
American Northeast
–
The Palisades along the
Hudson River, New Jersey
25.
American South
–
The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
American South
–
Texas Hill Country
American South
–
The Southern United States as defined by the
United States Census Bureau. The "South" and its regions are defined in various ways, however. (See
Geography section.)
American South
–
Bluegrass region in Kentucky
American South
–
Glass Mountains at Glass Mountains State Park, Oklahoma
26.
Subsistence farming
–
Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficiency farming in which the farmers focus on growing enough food to feed themselves and their families. The output is mostly for local requirements with little or no surplus trade, the typical subsistence farm has a range of crops and animals needed by the family to feed and clothe themselves during the year. Planting decisions are made principally with an eye toward what the family will need during the coming year, tony Waters writes, Subsistence peasants are people who grow what they eat, build their own houses, and live without regularly making purchases in the marketplace. Subsistence agriculture also emerged independently in Mexico where it was based on cultivation. Subsistence agriculture was the dominant mode of production in the world until recently, Subsistence horticulture may have developed independently in South East Asia and Papua New Guinea. Subsistence farming continues today in parts of rural Africa, and parts of Asia. Many of the items, as well as occasional services from physicians, veterinarians, blacksmiths. In Central and Eastern Europe subsistence and semi-subsistence agriculture reappeared within the economy since about 1990. In this type of agriculture, a patch of forest land is cleared by a combination of felling and burning, and crops are grown. After 2-3 years the fertility of the soil begins to decline, the land is abandoned, while the land is left fallow the forest regrows in the cleared area and soil fertility and biomass is restored. After a decade or more, the farmer may return to the first piece of land, shifting cultivation is called Dredd in India, Ladang in Indonesia and Milpa in Central America and Mexico. However, such farmers often recognize the value of such compost and they also may irrigate part of such fields if they are near a source of water. In some areas of tropical Africa, at least, such smaller fields may be ones in which crops are grown on raised beds, thus farmers practicing slash and burn agriculture are often much more sophisticated agriculturalists than the term slash and burn subsistence farmers suggest. In this type of farming people migrate along with their animals from one place to another in search of fodder for their animals, generally they rear cattle, sheep, goats, camels and/or yaks for milk, skin, meat and wool. This way of life is common in parts of central and western Asia, India, east and south-west Africa, examples are the nomadic Bhotiyas and Gujjars of the Himalayas. In Intensive subsistence agriculture, the farmer cultivates a small plot of land using simple tools, climate, with large number of days with sunshine and fertile soils permits growing of more than one crop annually on the same plot. Farmers use their land holdings to produce enough, for their local consumption. It results in more food being produced per acre compared to other subsistence patterns
Subsistence farming
–
Like most farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, this Cameroonian man cultivates at the subsistence level.
27.
Illinois Country
–
The Illinois Country — sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana — was a vast region of New France in what is now the Midwestern United States. Explored in 1673 from Green Bay to the Arkansas River by the Canadien expedition of Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette and it was settled primarily from the Pays den Haut in the context of the fur trade. Overtime, the fur trade took some French to the far reaches of the Rocky Mountains, the French name, Pays des Illinois, means Land of the Illinois and is a reference to the Illinois Confederation, a group of related Algonquian native peoples. The territory thus became known as Upper Louisiana, by the mid-18th century, the major settlements included Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Chartres, Saint Philippe, and Prairie du Rocher, all on the east side of the Mississippi in present-day Illinois, and Ste. Genevieve across the river in Missouri, as well as Fort Vincennes in what is now Indiana. As a consequence of the French defeat in the Seven Years War, the Illinois Country east of the Mississippi River was ceded to the British, and the land west of the river to the Spanish. Following the British occupation of the bank of the Mississippi in 1764, some Canadien settlers remained in the area, while others crossed the river. Eventually, the part of the Illinois Country became part of the British Province of Quebec. Louis to the confluence with the Ohio River, the boundaries of the Illinois Country were defined in a variety of ways, but the region now known as the American Bottom was nearly at the center of all descriptions. One of the earliest known geographic features designated as Ilinois was what became known as Lake Michigan. Early French missionaries and traders referred to the area southwest and southeast of the lake, including much of the upper Mississippi Valley, Illinois was also the name given to an area inhabited by the Illiniwek. A map of 1685 labels a large area southwest of the lake les Ilinois, in 1688, in 1721, the seventh civil and military district of Louisiana was named Illinois. Thus, Vincennes and Peoria were the limit of Louisianaa reach, as part of a general report on conditions in the newly conquered lands, Gen. Many French settlers moved west across the river to escape British control, on the west bank, the Spanish also continued to refer to the western region governed from St. Louis as the District of Illinois and referred to St. Louis as the city of Illinois. The first French explorations of the Illinois Country were in the first half of the 17th century, led by explorers, Étienne Brûlé explored the upper Illinois country in 1615 but did not document his experiences. Joseph de La Roche Daillon reached an oil spring at the northeasternmost fringe of the Mississippi River basin during his 1627 missionary journey. In 1669–70, Father Jacques Marquette, a missionary in French Canada, was at a station on Lake Superior. He learned about the river that ran through their country to the south
Illinois Country
–
"Pais des Ilinois" (Illinois Country) in 1717
Illinois Country
–
1681 map of the New World;
New France and the
Great Lakes in the north with a dark line as the
Mississippi River to the west
Illinois Country
–
Map of Western New France, including the Illinois Country, by
Vincenzo Coronelli, 1688
Illinois Country
–
Reconstructed
curtain and
gatehouse of Fort De Chartres
28.
Father Marquette
–
Father Jacques Marquette S. J. sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Jesuit missionary who founded Michigans first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie, and later founded St. Ignace, Michigan, in 1673 Father Marquette and Louis Jolliet were the first Europeans to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River. Jacques Marquette was born at Laon, France, on June 1,1637, after he worked and taught in France for several years, the Jesuits assigned him to New France in 1666 as a missionary to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. He showed great proficiency in learning the languages, especially Huron. In 1668 Father Marquette was moved by his superiors to missions farther up the St. Lawrence River in the western Great Lakes region and he helped found missions at Sault Ste. Marie in present-day Michigan in 1668, St. Ignace in 1671, at La Pointe he encountered members of the Illinois tribes, who told him about the important trading route of the Mississippi River. They invited him to teach their people, whose settlements were mostly farther south, leave was granted, and in 1673, Marquette joined the expedition of Louis Jolliet, a French-Canadian explorer. They departed from St. Ignace on May 17, with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry and they followed Lake Michigan to Green Bay and up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters. From there, they were told to portage their canoes a distance of less than two miles through marsh and oak plains to the Wisconsin River. Many years later, at point the town of Portage, Wisconsin was built. From the portage, they ventured forth, and on June 17, they entered the Mississippi near present-day Prairie du Chien, the Joliet-Marquette expedition traveled to within 435 miles of the Gulf of Mexico but turned back at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By this point they had encountered natives carrying European trinkets. They followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River and they reached Lake Michigan near the site of modern-day Chicago, by way of the Chicago Portage. In September Marquette stopped at the mission of St. Francis Xavier, located in present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, Marquette and his party returned to the Illinois Territory in late 1674, becoming the first Europeans to winter in what would become the city of Chicago. As welcomed guests of the Illinois Confederation, the explorers were feasted en route, in the spring of 1675, Marquette traveled westward and celebrated a public mass at the Grand Village of the Illinois near Starved Rock. A bout of dysentery which he had contracted during the Mississippi expedition sapped his health, on the return trip to St. Ignace, he died at age 37 near the modern town of Ludington, Michigan. Marquette Transportation Company, a company using a silhouette of the Pere in his canoe as their emblem. Other types of memorials were erected, including those at his birthplace in Laon, France, the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library displays Wilderness, Winter River Scene, a restored mural by Midwestern artist R. Fayerweather Babcock
Father Marquette
–
Jacques Marquette
Father Marquette
–
Pere Marquette and the Indians [at the Mississippi River], oil painting (1869) by Wilhelm
Lamprecht (1838–1906), at
Marquette University
Father Marquette
–
Monument marking where Marquette spent the winter of 1674–75 in what is now Chicago
Father Marquette
–
The grave of Father Marquette, St. Ignace, Michigan.
29.
Louis Joliet
–
Louis Jolliet was a French Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. Jolliet and Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore, Jolliet was born in 1645 in a French settlement near Quebec City. When he was seven years old, his father died but his mother remarried a successful merchant, Jolliets stepfather owned land on the Ile dOrleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec that was home to First Nations. Jolliet spent much time on Ile dOrleans, so it was likely that he began speaking Aboriginal languages at a young age, during his childhood, Quebec was the center of the French fur trade. The Natives were part of life in Quebec, and Joliet grew up knowing a lot about them. He entered a Jesuit school as a child and focused on philosophical and religious studies and he also studied music, becoming a skilled harpsichordist and church organist. Yet he decided to leave the seminary as an adult and pursued fur trading instead, Jolliet attended a Jesuit school in Quebec and received minor orders in 1662, but abandoned his plans to become a priest in 1667. He spoke French, English, and Spanish, de Soto had named the river Rio del Espiritu Santo, but tribes along its length called it variations of Mississippi. On May 17,1673, Jolliet and Marquette departed from St. Ignace Michigan with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry. The group followed Lake Michigan to the end of Green Bay and they then paddled upstream on the Fox River to the site now known as Portage, Wisconsin. There, they portaged a distance of less than two miles through marsh and oak forest to the Wisconsin River. Europeans eventually built a trading post at that shortest convenient portage between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins, on June 17, the canoeists ventured onto the Mississippi River near present-day Prairie du Chien. The Jolliet-Marquette expedition traveled down the Mississippi to within 435 miles of the Gulf of Mexico and they turned back north at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By this point, they had encountered natives carrying European goods, the voyageurs then followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River, which friendly natives told them was a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. Following the Illinois river upstream, they turned up its tributary the Des Plaines River near modern-day Joliet. They then continued up the Des Plaines river, and portaged their canoes and they then followed the Chicago River downstream until they reached Lake Michigan near the location of modern-day Chicago. Father Marquette stayed at the mission of St. Francis Xavier at the end of Green Bay. Joliet returned to Quebec to relate the news of their discoveries, Marquette returned to what later became the Illinois Country in late 1674
Louis Joliet
–
Alfred Laliberté 's Louis Jolliet sculpture in front of
Parliament Building (Quebec)
Louis Joliet
–
Ca. 1681 map of Marquette and Jolliet's 1673 expedition.
Louis Joliet
–
Plaque commemorating Jolliet in Chicago.
30.
Portage
–
Portage or portaging is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A place where this occurs is also called a portage. Early French explorers in New France and French Louisiana encountered many rapids, the Native Americans carried their canoes over land to avoid river obstacles. Over time, important portages were sometimes provided with canals with locks, primitive portaging generally involves carrying the vessel and its contents across the portage in multiple trips. Small canoes can be portaged by carrying them inverted over ones shoulders, historically, voyageurs often employed tump lines on their heads to carry loads on their backs. Portages can be many kilometers in length, such as the 19-kilometre Methye Portage, some portages involve very little elevation change, such as the very short Mavis Grind in Shetland, which crosses an isthmus. This section deals mostly with the freight canoes used by the Canadian Voyageurs. Portage trails usually began as animal tracks and were improved by tramping or blazing, in a few places iron-plated wooden rails were laid to take a handcart. Heavily used routes sometimes evolved into roads when sledges, rollers or oxen were used, sometimes railways or canals were built. If the second course were chosen, the boat would be controlled by the avant standing in front with a long paddle, the avant had a better view and was in charge but the gouvernail had more control over the boat. The other canoemen provided power under the instructions of the avant, going upstream was more difficult, as there were many places where the current was too swift to paddle. Where the river bottom was shallow and firm, voyageurs would stand in the canoe and push it upstream with 3-metre poles. If the shoreline was reasonably clear the canoe could be tracked or lined, that is, in worse conditions, the demi-chargé technique was used. Half the cargo was unloaded, the canoe forced upstream, unloaded, in still worse currents, the entire cargo was unloaded and carried overland while the canoe was forced upstream. In the worst case a full portage was necessary, the canoe was carried overland by two or four men The cargo was divided into standard 41-kilogram packs or pièces with each man responsible for about six. One pack would be carried by a tumpline and one on the back, to allow regular rests the voyageur would drop his pack at a pose about every 1 kilometre and go back for the next load. The time for a portage was estimated at one hour per half mile, the Diolkos was a paved trackway in Ancient Greece which enabled boats to be moved overland across the Isthmus of Corinth between the Gulf of Corinth and the Saronic Gulf. It was constructed to high ranking Despots to conduct business in the justice system
Portage
–
Canoes from
Camp Pathfinder portaging in
Algonquin Park
Portage
–
Canoe rest along a portage trail
Portage
–
Small railway portage in the U.S.
Portage
–
Paved section of the
Diolkos
31.
Illinois Territory
–
Its capital was the former French village of Kaskakia. The area was known as Illinois Country while under French control, first as part of French Canada. The British gained authority over the region east of the Mississippi River with the 1763 Treaty of Paris, marking the end of the French and Indian War. During the American Revolutionary War, Colonel George Rogers Clark took possession of the region for Virginia, Virginia later ceded nearly all of its land claims north of the Ohio River to the Federal government of the United States, in order to satisfy objections of land-locked states. The area became part of the United States Northwest Territory, the Illinois Territory originally included lands that became the states of Illinois, Wisconsin, the eastern portion of Minnesota, and the western portion of the upper peninsula of Michigan. As Illinois was preparing to become a state, the area of the territory was attached to the Michigan Territory. The original boundaries of the Territory were defined as follows, “. ”The 1810 census showed a population of 12,282, ninian Edwards served as governor of the territory during its entire existence. Its secretaries were, Nathaniel Pope Joseph Phillips In 1818, the half of the territory was admitted to the United States as the State of Illinois. The northern half, modern Wisconsin and parts of modern Minnesota, buck, Illinois in 1818 Animated Map, Boundaries of the United States and the Several States
Illinois Territory
–
Between 1818 and 1833, after Illinois became a state and the unincorporated land from their territories, plus a handful of other townships, were made part of Michigan Territory.
32.
Slave states
–
Historically, slavery had been practiced in all the British colonies. The division between slave and free states began during the American Revolution, slavery was a divisive issue and was the primary cause of the American Civil War. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, slavery was legal and practiced in each of the Thirteen Colonies that became the US. During British colonization, the population expanded, primarily drawn from the Atlantic slave trade. Organized political and social movements to end slavery began in the mid-18th century, the sentiments of the American Revolution and the equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence stood in contrast to the status of most black Americans. Despite this, thousands of black Americans fought against the British in hopes of a new order, thousands also joined the British army, encouraged by British offers of freedom in exchange for military service. In the 1770s, blacks throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom, five of the Northern self-declared states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Vermont abolished slavery in 1777, while it was independent. These state jurisdictions enacted the first abolition laws in the Americas. By 1804, all of the states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually reduce it. In the south, Kentucky was created a state from Virginia. By 1804, before the creation of new states from the western territories. In popular usage, the divide between the slave and free states was called the Mason–Dixon line. The 1787, United States Constitutional Convention debated slavery and for a time slavery was an impediment to passage of the new constitution. As a compromise the institution was acknowledged though never mentioned directly in the constitution, in 1808, the United States outlawed the international slave import trade but the domestic trade in half the states continued. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before the U. S, Constitution was ratified, prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory. The southern boundary of the territory was the Ohio River, which was regarded as a extension of the Mason–Dixon line. The territory was settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there
Slave states
–
Division of state during the Civil War. Blue represents
Union states, including those admitted during the war; light blue represents border states; red represents
Confederate states. Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War.
Slave states
–
An animation showing the free/slave status of U.S. states and territories, 1789-1861 (see also: separate yearly maps below). The Civil War began in 1861. Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, effective December 1865.
33.
Nathaniel Pope
–
Nathaniel W. Pope was a politician and jurist from the U. S. state of Illinois. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to a family important in Virginia. Pope graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington in 1804, then law under his brother John Pope before being admitted to the bar. However, Pope soon realized economic opportunities were greater in Kaskaskia on the bank of the Mississippi River. Furthermore, Kaskaskia became the seat of government when Congress organized the Illinois Territory in 1809, splitting off what became Ohio, Popes family connections, especially his brother John who became U. S. Senator from Kentucky in 1807, mattered, President James Madison on 23 February 1809 appointed Pope as Secretary of the Illinois Territory. When Kentucky Judge John Boyle declined appointment as the new governor, Popes cousin, Ninian Edwards. Pope, Edwards and Illinois new judges resolved that laws previously in effect in Indiana would remain in force in Illinois unless repealed, during the War of 1812, Pope served on Governor Edwards staff during an expedition to fight hostile native tribes near Peoria Lake. After being elected on September 5,1816 as Territorial Delegate to the United States Congress, meanwhile, Pope moved to Vandalia and then to Springfield to follow transfers of the territorial capital. Pope returned East in 1817 to serve as the Territorys Delegate in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth United States Congress, upon leaving Congress, Pope was appointed register of the land office at Edwardsville, Illinois, on November 30,1818, and served until March 3,1819. On that date, he was nominated by President James Monroe to a new seat on the United States District Court for the District of Illinois, Pope later was an unsuccessful candidate for a seat on the United State Supreme Court. Pope continued to serve as a judge until his death in 1850. Pope died at his daughters home in St. Louis, Missouri, and was interred at Colonel OFallon Burying Ground and his son became a Union General, John Pope. His nephew, Daniel Pope Cook, was prominent in Illinois politics. Pope County, Illinois, was named for Pope, as was the recently closed Nathaniel Pope Elementary School in North Lawndale, Nathaniel Pope, From Connections and Factional Politics to Champion of Statehood from Illinois History, December 1993 United States Congress. Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Nathaniel Pope at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center. Nathaniel Pope from 1784 to 1850, A Memoir, peaceful Politics, The Delegates from Illinois Territory from 1809 to 1818. Laws of the Territory of Illinois, revised and digested, under the authority of the legislature, Kaskaskia, Printed by Matthew Duncan Printer to the Territory,1815
Nathaniel Pope
–
Nathaniel Pope.
34.
Ninian Edwards
–
Ninian Edwards was a founding political figure of the state of Illinois. In a time and place where personal coalitions were more influential than parties, born in Maryland, Edwards began his political career in Kentucky, where he served as a legislator and judge. He rose to the position of Chief Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1808, in 1809, U. S. President James Madison appointed him to govern the newly created Illinois Territory. He held that post for three terms, overseeing the transition first to democratic second grade government, and then to statehood in 1818. On its second day in session, the Illinois General Assembly elected Edwards to the U. S. Senate, Edwards won an unlikely 1826 election to become Governor of Illinois. Conflict with the legislature over state bank regulations marked Edwards administration, as governor or territorial governor he twice sent Illinois militia against Native Americans, in the War of 1812 and the Winnebago War, and signed treaties for the cession of Native American land. Edwards returned to life when his term ended in 1830. Ninian Edwards was born in 1775 to the prominent Edwards family in Montgomery County and his mother, Margaret Beall Edwards, was from another prominent local family. Ninian was educated by tutors, one of whom was the future U. S. Attorney General William Wirt. He attended Dickinson College from 1790 to 1792 but did not graduate and his son Ninian Wirt Edwards wrote later that Edwards spent some of his time at Dickinson reading medicine, a field to which he devoted considerable time in his later years. In 1794, at the age of 19, Edwards moved to Nelson County and he showed a great aptitude for business and leadership and was soon elected to a seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives, before he was even eligible to vote. In 1802 he was awarded the rank of major in the militia and he joined the high court in 1806 and won the leadership position in 1808. A well-educated landowning aristocrat, Edwards deliberately cultivated the image of the natural leader, Thomas Ford writes that he continued to dress like an 18th-century gentleman long after such fashions had gone out of style, and that his public speaking was marked by showy eloquence. Edwards consciously positioned himself in the class of men who dominated Kentucky and, later. In 1803 in Russellville, Edwards married Elvira Lane, a relative from Maryland, the Illinois Territory was created in 1809. It included all of what today is the state of Wisconsin, as well as parts of Minnesota and its population was almost entirely concentrated in the south, in the region later known as Egypt. President James Madison first appointed Kentucky politician John Boyle as its governor, only 34 years old at the time of his appointment, Ninian Edwards is the youngest man ever to govern Illinois as either a state or a territory. Edwards settled in the American Bottom on land he received as a grant upon his appointment as governor and he named his new farm Elvirade, after his wife
Ninian Edwards
–
Ninian Edwards
35.
U.S. state
–
A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance
U.S. state
–
U.S. states
36.
Samuel D. Lockwood
–
Samuel Drake Lockwood was an Illinois politician who served as the states Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Supreme Court Justice. Lockwood was born in Poundridge, New York and his father, Joseph, was an hotelier. His mother was Mary, née Drake, samuel was the oldest of four. His siblings were Jesse, Rebecca, and Cornelius, Cornelius died of yellow fever in 1799, and their father Joseph died two days later of the same disease. Samuel studied law with Drake and was admitted to the bar in Batavia, Lockwood practiced law in Batavia for a year before relocating his practice to Sempronius, New York for about a year and a half. From 1815 until August 1818, he had a law partnership in Auburn, Lockwood ended that practice when he decided to move to the new state of Illinois. In 1818, he and a friend, William H. Brown descended the Ohio River and they walked across the state to Kaskaskia and Lockwood eventually settled in Carmi. He finally settled in Batavia, Illinois, in 1853, in 1821, Lockwood was elected Attorney General. During his brief term as Attorney General, Lockwood successfully prosecuted the only known duel to come to trial in Illinois. He resigned after only a year when Governor Edward Coles appointed him as Secretary of State when Illinois first Secretary of State, three months later, Lockwood received an appointment as the Receiver of Public Moneys from President James Monroe. One of the reasons Lockwood accepted the appointment from Madison was that it would afford him the time, Lockwood received an appointment to the First Board of Canal Commissioners. Lockwood was given the duty of contracting with engineers to survey the route of the Illinois, also in 1824, The Illinois Supreme Court was reorganized by the legislature and Lockwood was appointed a judge on the Supreme Court and remained on the court until 1848. In the 1820s, Lockwood resisted the adoption of a pro-slavery Constitution for Illinois, in his retirement, he remained in Batavia, where he died at age 85
Samuel D. Lockwood
–
Samuel D. Lockwood
37.
Panic of 1837
–
The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that touched off a major recession that lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages went down while unemployment went up, the panic had both domestic and foreign origins. On May 10,1837, banks in New York City suspended specie payments, despite a brief recovery in 1838, the recession persisted for approximately seven years. Banks collapsed, businesses failed, prices declined, and thousands of workers lost their jobs, unemployment may have been as high as 25% in some locales. The years 1837 to 1844 were, generally speaking, years of deflation in wages and prices, the crisis followed a period of economic expansion from mid-1834 to mid-1836. The prices of land, cotton, and slaves rose sharply in these years, the origins of this boom had many sources, both domestic and international. Because of the factors of international trade at the time, abundant amounts of silver were coming into the United States from Mexico. Land sales and tariffs on imports were also generating substantial federal revenues, through lucrative cotton exports and the marketing of state-backed bonds in British money markets, the United States acquired significant capital investment from Great Britain. These bonds financed transportation projects in the United States, to compensate, the directors indicated that they would gradually raise interest rates from 3 to 5 percent. Conventional financial theory held that banks should raise interest rates and curb lending when faced with low monetary reserves, raising interest rates, according to the laws of supply and demand, was supposed to attract specie since money generally flows where it will generate the greatest return. S. The result was that as the Bank of England raised interest rates, when New York banks raised interest rates and scaled back on lending, the effects were damaging. Since the price of a bond bears a relationship to the yield. The price of cotton fell by 25% in February and March 1837, the United States economy, especially in the southern states, was heavily dependent on stable cotton prices. Within the United States, there were contributing factors. In July 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill to recharter the Second Bank of the United States, as the BUS wound up its operations in the next four years, state-chartered banks in the West and South relaxed their lending standards, maintaining unsafe reserve ratios. Two domestic policies, in particular, exacerbated an already volatile situation, the Specie Circular of 1836 mandated that western lands could be purchased only with gold and silver coin. The circular was an order issued by Andrew Jackson, and favored by Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. Secondly, the Deposit and Distribution Act of 1836 placed federal revenues in various local banks across the country, Many of these banks were located in western regions
Panic of 1837
–
Whig cartoon showing the effects of unemployment on a family that has Jackson's and Van Buren's portraits on the wall
Panic of 1837
–
An 1837
caricature blames
Andrew Jackson for hard times
Panic of 1837
38.
Eastern U.S. states
–
It is geographically diverse, spanning the Northeast and Southeast as well as the eastern part of the Central United States. In 2011 the 26 states east of the Mississippi had an population of 179,948,346 or 58. 28% of the total U. S. population of 308,745,358. The Southern United States constitutes a region in the south-eastern. In the last few decades, the Southern US has been attracting internal and international migrants, the American South is among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. In one of the earliest English settlements in the New World, English Pilgrims from Europe first settled in New England in 1620, New England produced the first examples of American literature and philosophy and was home to the beginnings of free public education. In the 19th century, it played a prominent role in the movement to abolish slavery in the United States and it was the first region of the United States to be transformed by the Industrial Revolution. The Midwestern United States is one of the four regions within the United States that are recognized by the United States Census Bureau. The region consists of seven states in the central and inland northeastern US, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, a 2006 Census Bureau estimate put the population at 66,217,736. Both the geographic center of the contiguous U. S. the United States Census Bureau divides this region into the East North Central States and the West North Central States. Chicago is the largest city in the region, followed by Indianapolis, chicago has the largest metropolitan statistical area, followed by Detroit, and Minneapolis – Saint Paul. Marie, Michigan is the oldest city in the region, having been founded by French missionaries, the term Midwest has been in common use for over 100 years. Another term sometimes applied to the general region is the heartland. Other designations for the region have fallen into disuse, such as the Northwest or Old Northwest, since the book Middletown appeared in 1929, sociologists have often used Midwestern cities as typical of the entire nation. The region has a higher ratio than the Northeast, the West. Four of the associated with the Midwestern United States are traditionally referred to as belonging to the Great Plains region. However, in recent years they are included in the Midwestern region. The following is a list of the 24 largest cities in the East by population, East Coast of the United States Eastern Canada Territories of the United States on stamps
Eastern U.S. states
–
New York City population: 8,175,133
Eastern U.S. states
–
The area ceded to the United States by Great Britain in 1783 (light brown) is usually recognized as the Eastern United States. Louisiana and Florida acquisitions were recognized as the Western and Southern frontiers in early days of the Republic. Although east of the Rockies, Texas is considered Western.
Eastern U.S. states
–
Chicago population: 2,695,598
Eastern U.S. states
–
Philadelphia population: 1,526,006
39.
United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
United Kingdom
–
Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
–
Flag
United Kingdom
–
The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
–
The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
40.
Irish people
–
The Irish people are a nation and ethnic group native to the island of Ireland, who share a common Irish ancestry, identity and culture. Ireland has been inhabited for about 9,000 years according to archaeological studies, for most of Irelands recorded history, the Irish have been primarily a Gaelic people. Today, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland, the people of Northern Ireland hold various national identities, including Irish, Northern Irish, British, or some combination thereof. The Irish have their own customs, language, music, dance, sports, cuisine, although Irish was their main language in the past, today the huge majority of Irish people speak English as their first language. Historically, the Irish nation was made up of kin groups or clans, there have been many notable Irish people throughout history. After Irelands conversion to Christianity, Irish missionaries and scholars exerted great influence on Western Europe, the 6th-century Irish monk and missionary Columbanus is regarded as one of the fathers of Europe, followed by saints Cillian and Fergal. The scientist Robert Boyle is considered the father of chemistry, famous Irish writers include Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker and James Joyce, notable Irish explorers include Brendan the Navigator, Robert McClure, Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean. By some accounts, the first European child born in North America had Irish descent on both sides, many presidents of the United States have had some Irish ancestry. The population of Ireland is about 6.3 million, but it is estimated that 50 to 80 million people around the world have Irish forebears, historically, emigration from Ireland has been the result of conflict, famine and economic issues. People of Irish descent are mainly in English-speaking countries, especially the United Kingdom. There are also significant numbers in Argentina, Mexico and New Zealand, the United States has the most people of Irish descent, while in Australia those of Irish descent are a higher percentage of the population than in any other country. Many Icelanders have Irish and Scottish Gaelic forebears, in its summary of their article Who were the Celts. The National Museum Wales notes It is possible that genetic studies of ancient. However, early studies have, so far, tended to produce implausible conclusions from very small numbers of people and using outdated assumptions about linguistics, nineteenth century anthropology studied the physical characteristics of Irish people in minute detail. During the past 10,000 years of inhabitation, Ireland has witnessed some different peoples arrive on its shores, the ancient peoples of Ireland—such as the creators of the Céide Fields and Newgrange—are almost unknown. Neither their languages nor terms they used to describe themselves have survived, as late as the middle centuries of the 1st millennium the inhabitants of Ireland did not appear to have a collective name for themselves. Ireland itself was known by a number of different names, including Banba, Fódla, Ériu by the islanders, Iouerne and Hiverne to the Greeks, other Latin names for people from Ireland in Classic and Mediaeval sources include Attacotti and Gael
Irish people
–
Carrowmore tomb, circa 3000 BC
Irish people
–
Robert Boyle, Anglo-Irish scientist and
father of chemistry, whose family obtained land in the plantations
Irish people
–
Finnian of Clonard imparting his blessing to the "
Twelve Apostles of Ireland "
Irish people
–
Irish Gaels in a painting from the 16th century
41.
Navvy
–
The term was coined in the late 18th century in Great Britain when numerous canals were being built, which were also sometimes known as navigations, or eternal navigations, intended to last forever. A study of 19th century British railway contracts by David Brooke, coinciding with census returns and he does, however, state that only the ubiquitous Irish can be regarded as a truly international force in railway construction although the Irish only comprised about 30% of the navvies. There were 250,000 navvies employed during the apex of British railway expansion efforts, Navvies working on railway projects typically continued to work using hand tools, supplemented with explosives. Elsewhere, for example in the United States and Canada, where labour was scarce and expensive. In the States the machine became so strong that the word navvy is understood to mean not a man. Being a navvy labourer became an experience unto its own during the 19th century. The navvies working on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were paid daily and their pay reputedly went on ale, when the workers were unfit to work, monies were subtracted from their wages and meal tokens were issued. These tokens could be handed in at meal caravans for a bowl of soup, at first the token was a slip of paper called a flimsy because of its thickness. In todays terms it would be similar to a grade called bank paper, as these tokens could be copied by the forgers, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway supplied its contractors with six-sided food tokens that were surrendered for meals. These were cut from brass and had the initials LMR stamped upon them and this reduced the problems of drunken navvies and eliminated the local farm labourers freeloading from the food caravans. Tokens and a description of their use can be found in the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester, the construction tycoon Morton Peto encouraged religious services for his workforce, as well as providing some social services to the navvy populations. Many of the employed to build the railways in England during the early part of the 19th century lived in squalid temporary accommodations referred to as shanty towns. Due in part to constructing through rural areas, and, in part, initially, the housing huts were constructed quickly and meant to be temporary. As a result, little thought was given to comfort, let alone sanitation, shanties were clearly unhealthy places in which to live, and it was not uncommon for a navvy community to be overtaken by cholera, dysentery or typhus. In addition to these living conditions, navvies shared housing. The majority of navvies were Englishmen, with 30% of the group being Irish, while this ratio varied from navvy shanty town to shanty town, sleeping arrangements were segregated. In at least one documented instance, a riot broke out between the two nationalities in one navvy shanty town, causing local magistrates to arrest 12 individuals, though, this is not necessarily indicative of relations between the English and Irish in all navvy gangs. In addition to their living arrangements, navvies confronted varying degrees of dangerous work environments that depended both on the terrain, and the locals reception of them
Navvy
–
A "navvy" depicted in
Ford Madox Brown 's painting
Work
Navvy
–
Navvies constructing the railroad between Stockholm and Uppsala, Sweden in approximately the year 1900.
Navvy
–
Last surviving Navvy Housing in the UK Wooden huts at the former Edmondthorpe & Wymondham Station, protected as a Grade II Listed Building
42.
James Hutchinson Woodworth
–
Woodworth completed his career in Chicago as one of the citys most noteworthy bankers. He is a member of the Woodworth political family and he was born in Greenwich in Washington County, New York, the son of Connecticut natives Eleazer Woodworth and Catherine Rock Woodworth. His father died when Woodworth was young and he received limited schooling and completed his formal education by the time he was 14. Woodworths various brothers figured prominently in his life, at various times, they provided employment, provided training or other support for career changes, and served as business partners. Woodworths life illustrated a steady progression westward as the center of the United States was opened after the Louisiana Purchase and he eventually settled in Chicago and was instrumental in insuring its place as the nations most prominent midwestern trading city. In Chicago, Woodworth married Almyra Booth, the daughter of Walter Booth of Paris, Illinois and she was a member of the Booth family that settled in Indiana from their homes in Connecticut, their American ancestry stretched back to the founder of Connecticut, the Reverend Thomas Hooker. The Booth family was noted for its interest in service. Almyra Booth was related to both California Governor Newton Booth and the author Booth Tarkington, Woodworth and Almyra Booth had three children, two of whom died in infancy. Their daughter Virginia Almyra Woodworth was married to Tunis B, through Virginia Van Wyck, the Woodworths had one surviving grandchild, Virginia Almyra Van Wyck who married George Pope of Glencoe, Illinois. Woodworth is buried in the Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago, together with his wife Almyra, Woodworth began his career by helping his older brother run the family farm in Washington County, New York. When Woodworth was 19 his brother arranged the exchange of the farm in Washington County, NY for a farm in Onondaga County. He continued to work on the new farm in Onondaga County. In his last two years of farming in Onondaga County, we worked to clear land and erect buildings on a tract of land known at the time as the Indian Reservation, upon leaving farming, he struck out initially to run a dry goods business. Despite his limited education, he became a teacher in the local school district of Fabius. In 1826, he was appointed inspector of the common schools and he briefly considered a career as a physician while working for another brother, Dr Robert P. Woodworth. In 1827, he decided to work along the Erie Canal, there he and another Woodworth brother operated a small scale dry goods or trading business and lived in Erie, Pennsylvania. From 1829 to 1832 he served as a justice of the peace in Pennsylvania, Woodworth arrived in Chicago in 1833, the first year of its incorporation as a city in Cook County, when its population totaled 500. He immediately began operating a dry goods business which continued until 1840, in 1835, while operating his dry goods business, he applied for, and received, wharfing privileges
James Hutchinson Woodworth
–
James H. Woodworth
43.
Blue Island, Il
–
Blue Island is a city in Cook County, Illinois, located approximately 16 miles south of Chicagos Loop. Blue Island is adjacent to the city of Chicago and shares its boundary with that citys Morgan Park neighborhood. The population was 23,706 at the 2010 United States Census, nowhere about Chicago is there to be found a more pleasant and desirable resident locality. Beginning in 1883, Blue Island was also host to the car shops of the Rock Island Railroad, a large regional hospital and two major clinics are also located in the city. By 1850, half of Blue Islands population was either foreign-born or the children of foreign-born residents, later, significant groups came from Italy, Poland, Sweden and Mexico. The city is one of ten incorporated areas in Illinois to have been designated by the White House as a Preserve America community, today, downtown Blue Island is better known for its antique stores, art galleries, ethnic delicatessens and fine dining. Much of this shift in business activity has been brought on by big box development outside of town that space constraints make it impossible for uptown to accommodate. The Blue Island Opera House was built by Blue Islands first mayor John L. Zacharias to replace the Robinson Block, the opera house was host to vaudeville and repertoire shows until 1913, when it became the Grand Theater and a venue for motion pictures. In later years the building was home to the Blue Island Sun-Standard newspaper, the building has been designated as a landmark by the Blue Island Historic Preservation CommissionMoraine Valley Community College operates a satellite facility uptown. The market was a place where farmers from an area surrounding Blue Island came to town to sell their wares to each other. As the postcard image to the shows, items offered included produce, farm equipment. After it was discovered in the early 1850s that rich deposits of clay surrounded the ridge, by 1900, the Clifton Brickyard alone—which had opened in 1883 under the name of Purington at the far northeast corner of the village—was producing 150,000,000 bricks a year. In 1886, the Chicago architectural firm of Adler and Sullivan designed a complex for the Wahl Brothers brickyard on the west side of the Grand Trunk tracks between 119th and 123rd streets. These buildings had been demolished by 1935, and all of Blue Islands brickyards were re-purposed by the part of the mid-20th century. The larger ones for a while become landfills, and the Wahl Brothers location is now the site of the Meadows Golf Club, some sources state that the city of Blue Island was once officially known as Portland. On April 13,1839, Peter Barton and his partners registered the plat of Portland with the state of Illinois, Portland had been laid out on land purchased from the federal government which was situated south of Vermont Street and east of Wabash Road. The Little Calumet River ran through the center of the platted area and they used their influence to have the local post office name changed from Blue Island to Portland, and on May 1,1839, this was accomplished. Portland was never incorporated – it existed for years by
Blue Island, Il
–
Blue Island, Illinois
Blue Island, Il
Blue Island, Il
–
Lake Chicago at the Glenwood Stage, showing the geological formation of Blue Island (middle lower right) protruding above the waters. The city of Blue Island occupies the lower quarter of the island and the surrounding plain in its vicinity. From Bulletin No. 1, The Geographic Society of Chicago, 1899
Blue Island, Il
44.
DuPage River
–
The DuPage River is a 28. 3-mile-long tributary of the Des Plaines River in the U. S. state of Illinois. The river begins as two individual streams, the West Branch of the DuPage River,35. The East Branch of the DuPage River,25.0 miles long, begins in Bloomingdale and flows southward through Glendale Heights, Glen Ellyn, Lisle, Woodridge, parts of Naperville, the two branches meet at a spot between Naperville and Bolingbrook. The combined DuPage River continues southward from that point, through Plainfield & Shorewood and then west of Joliet, before finally meeting the Des Plaines River. Other flooding was very common, along Washington Street in Naperville and Illinois Route 53 in Glen Ellyn. A new dam that was built in 2009 has been a help in managing the rivers level. The first written history to address the name, the 1882 History of DuPage County, Illinois, relates that, The Du Page River had, from time immemorial and it took its name from a French trader who settled on this stream below the fork previous to 1800. Hon. H. W. Blodgett, of Waukegan, informs the writer that J. B. Beaubien had often spoken to him of the old Frenchman, Du Page, whose station was on the bank of the river, down toward its mouth, the county name must have the same origin. Mr. Beaubien says it is pronounced Du Pazhe and this was in reply to Mr. Blodgett’s inquiry of him concerning the matter. List of rivers of Illinois DuPage River Coalition, from The Conservation Foundation Flood-inundation Maps for the Dupage River from Plainfield to Shorewood, Illinois United States Geological Survey
DuPage River
–
Warrenville Grove Forest Preserve on the West Branch of the DuPage River, where Julius Warren claimed land in
Warrenville in 1833.
DuPage River
–
The West Branch of the DuPage River in
Naperville.
45.
Sewage
–
Sewage is a water-carried waste, in solution or suspension, that is intended to be removed from a community. Also known as domestic or municipal wastewater, it is characterized by volume or rate of flow, physical condition, chemical and toxic constituents and it consists mostly of greywater, blackwater, soaps and detergents, and toilet paper. Whether it also contains surface runoff depends on the design of sewer system, all sewage ends up back in the environment, by any of several routes. A basic distinction in its route is whether it undergoes sewage treatment to mitigate its effect on the environment before arriving there, Sewage usually travels from a buildings plumbing either into a sewer, which will carry it elsewhere, or into an onsite sewage facility. Whether it is combined with surface runoff in the sewer depends on the sewer design, before the 20th century, sewers usually discharged into a body of water such as a stream, river, lake, bay, or ocean. There was no treatment, so the breakdown of the waste was left to the ecosystem. Today, the goal is that sewers route their contents to a treatment plant rather than directly to a body of water. In many countries, this is the norm, in developing countries. Thus other goals of modern sewage routing include handling surface runoff separately from sewage, handling greywater separately from toilet waste, proper collection and safe, nuisance-free disposal of the liquid wastes of a community are legally recognized as a necessity in an urbanized, industrialized society. In many developing countries the bulk of domestic and industrial wastewater is discharged without any treatment or after primary treatment only, the term sewage is nowadays regarded as an older term and is being more and more replaced by wastewater. In general American English usage, the sewage and sewerage mean the same thing. Both words are descended from Old French assewer, derived from the Latin exaquare, in American technical and professional English usage, sewerage refers to the infrastructure that conveys sewage. Wastes that result from an industrial processes such as the production or manufacture of goods are classed as industrial wastewater, surface runoff, also known as storm flow or overland flow, is that portion of precipitation that runs rapidly over the ground surface to a defined channel. Sewage is a mixture of chemicals, with many distinctive chemical characteristics. These include high concentrations of ammonium, nitrate, phosphorus, high conductivity, high alkalinity, the organic matter of sewage is measured by determining its biological oxygen demand or the chemical oxygen demand. Sewage also contains the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, Sewage can be monitored for both disease-causing and benign organisms with a variety of techniques. Traditional techniques involve filtering, staining, and examining samples under a microscope, sequencing DNA from an environmental sample is known as metagenomics. Sewage has also analyzed to determine relative rates of use of prescription
Sewage
–
Raw sewage arriving at a
sewage treatment plant in Syria
Sewage
–
Greywater samples before and after treatment in a
constructed wetland in Peru
Sewage
–
A medieval waste pipe in
Stockholm Old Town formerly deposited sewage on the street to be flushed away by rain.
Sewage
–
Major types
46.
Towpath
–
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat. This mode of transport was common where sailing was impractical due to tunnels and bridges, unfavourable winds, after the Industrial Revolution, towing became obsolete when engines were fitted on boats and when railway transportation superseded the slow towing method. Since then, many of these towpaths have been converted to multi-use trails and they are still named towpaths — although they are now only occasionally used for the purpose of towing boats. As river banks were privately owned, such teams worked their way along the river banks as best they could. On British rivers such as the River Severn, the situation was improved by the creation of towing path companies in the late 1700s. The companies built towing paths along the banks of the river and they were not universally popular, however, as tolls were charged for their use, to recoup the capital cost, and this was resented on rivers where barge traffic had previously been free. With the advent of canals, most of them were constructed with towpaths suitable for horses. Many rivers were improved by artificial cuts, and this gave an opportunity to construct a towing path at the same time. Even so, the River Don Navigation was improved from Tinsley to Rotherham in 1751, on the River Avon between Stratford-upon-Avon and Tewkesbury, a towpath was never provided, and bow-hauling continued until the 1860s, when steam tugs were introduced. While towing paths were most convenient when they stayed on one side of a canal, there were occasions where it had to change sides and this had the benefit that the rope did not have to be detached while the transfer took place. The rope passed through a gap at the centre of the bridge between its two halves. One problem with the horse towing path where it passed under a bridge was abrasion of the rope on the bridge arch. This resulted in deep grooves being cut in the fabric of the bridge, and in many cases and these too soon developed deep grooves, but could be more easily replaced than the stonework of the bridge. In more recent times, this has provided difficulties for walkers, where an attractive river-side walk cannot be followed because the towpath changes sides, not all haulage was by horses, and an experiment was carried out on the Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal in 1888. The locomotive ran on 18 in gauge tracks, and was similar to Pet and it pulled trains of two and four boats at 7 mph, and experiments were also tried with eight boats. The mules which assist ships through the locks of the Panama Canal are an example of the concept. Towpaths are popular with cyclists and walkers, and some are suitable for equestrians, in snowy winters they are popular in the USA with cross-country skiers and snowmobile users
Towpath
–
A towpath in use on the
Finow Canal in Germany.
Towpath
–
People towing a vessel in the Netherlands in 1931
Towpath
–
A towpath on the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
Towpath
–
A
roving bridge on the English
Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal. The towpath changes to the other side of the canal but the horse does not have to be unhitched
47.
Canal lock
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A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. Locks are used to make a more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a direct route to be taken. Since 2016 the largest lock worldwide is the Kieldrecht Lock in the Port of Antwerp, a pound lock is a type of lock that is used almost exclusively nowadays on canals and rivers. A pound lock has a chamber with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound, in contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in medieval China during the Song Dynasty, having been pioneered by the government official and engineer Qiao Weiyue in 984. The gates were hanging gates, when they were closed the water accumulated like a tide until the level was reached. The water level could differ by 4 feet or 5 feet at each lock, in medieval Europe a sort of pound lock was built in 1373 at Vreeswijk, Netherlands. This pound lock serviced many ships at once in a large basin, yet the first true pound lock was built in 1396 at Damme near Bruges, Belgium. A famous civil engineer of pound locks in Europe was the Italian Bertola da Novate, who constructed 18 of them on the Naviglio di Bereguardo between the years 1452 and 1458. When a stretch of river is navigable, a lock is sometimes required to bypass an obstruction such as a rapid, dam. In large scale river navigation improvements, weirs and locks are used together, a river improved by these means is often called a Waterway or River Navigation. Sometimes a river is made entirely non-tidal by constructing a sea lock directly into the estuary, in more advanced river navigations, more locks are required. Where a longer cut bypasses a stretch of river, the upstream end of the cut will often be protected by a flood lock. The longer the cut, the greater the difference in level between start and end of the cut, so that a very long cut will need additional locks along its length. At this point, the cut is, in effect, a canal, Early completely artificial canals, across fairly flat countryside, would get round a small hill or depression by simply detouring around it. However, locks continued to be built to supplement these solutions, all pound locks have three elements, A watertight chamber connecting the upper and lower canals, and large enough to enclose one or more boats. The position of the chamber is fixed, but its level can vary
Canal lock
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Canal lock and lock-keeper's cottage on the Aylesbury Arm of the
Grand Union Canal at
Marsworth in Hertfordshire, England
Canal lock
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Lock on the River
Neckar at
Heidelberg in
Germany
Canal lock
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Three gorges dam lock near
Yichang on
Yangtze river,
China
Canal lock
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A pound lock on the Keitele-
Päijänne Canal at
Äänekoski in
Central Finland
48.
Navigable aqueduct
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Navigable aqueducts are bridge structures that carry navigable waterway canals over other rivers, valleys, railways or roads. They are primarily distinguished by their size, carrying a larger cross-section of water than most water-supply aqueducts, the 662-metre long steel Briare aqueduct carrying the Canal latéral à la Loire over the River Loire was built in 1896. It was ranked as the longest navigable aqueduct in the world for more than a century, early aqueducts such as the three on the Canal du Midi had stone or brick arches, the longest span being 18.3 metres on the Cesse Aqueduct, built in 1690. But, the weight of the construction to support the trough with the clay or other lining to make it waterproof made these structures clumsy, in 1796 the first large cast iron aqueduct was built by Thomas Telford at Longdon-on-Tern on the Shrewsbury Canal. It has a length of 57 metres across three intermediate piers. Within ten years Telford had completed the far more ambitious Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales on the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee valley, with a total length 307 metres. Other cast-iron aqueducts followed, such as the single-span Stanley Ferry Aqueduct on the Calder and Hebble Navigation in 1839, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the River Dee valley in north Wales, it was designed by Thomas Telford and opened in 1805. The same canal, which includes a section, crosses a second valley on the Chirk Aqueduct. This navigable canal also supplies water to the borough of Crewe. The Avon is the second-longest aqueduct in the United Kingdom, the Agen aqueduct in France is 539 metres long and carries the canal de Garonne across the Garonne River. The Briare aqueduct near Châtillon-sur-Loire, France, carries the Canal latéral à la Loire in a channel over the Loire River. At 662 metres, it was the longest canal aqueduct in the world for a century, in recent years the building of the Lichfield Canal Aqueduct ran into construction difficulties. The UK parliament passed legislation preventing a road being built in the path of a canal being renovated without providing a tunnel or aqueduct for canal traffic to pass, barton Swing Aqueduct is a swing bridge that carries the Bridgewater Canal across the lower Manchester Ship Canal. A234 ft section of the aqueduct rotates through 90 degrees to allow vessels to pass along the Ship Canal, an aqueduct near Roelofarendsveen, Netherlands carries the Ringvaart canal over the A4 highway and the HSL-Zuid, which are situated on land below the level of the canal. Gouwe aqueduct, near Gouda in the Netherlands, carries the Gouwe river over the A12 highway, the Krabbersgat naviduct, Houtribdijk near Enkhuizen, The Netherlands, is the only aqueduct in the world that also operates as a lock. The Magdeburg Water Bridge in Germany connects the important Mittellandkanal over the river Elbe to the Elbe-Havel canal, nearly 1 km long, it is the longest navigable aqueduct in the world. Aqueduct Canal List of canal aqueducts in Great Britain Viaduct
Navigable aqueduct
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Narrowboat crossing the World Heritage
Pontcysyllte Aqueduct in Wales
Navigable aqueduct
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Out-of-use cast-iron Longden-on-Tern aqueduct
Navigable aqueduct
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Briare aqueduct, over the river Loire, France
Navigable aqueduct
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The Magdeburg Water Bridge seen from the shores of the
Elbe
49.
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, at the end of 1970 it operated 7183 miles of road on 10669 miles of track, that year it reported 20557 million ton-miles of revenue freight and 118 million passenger-miles. The song Rock Island Line, a spiritual from the late 1920s first recorded in 1934, was inspired by the railway, construction began October 1,1851, in Chicago, and the first train was operated on October 10,1852, between Chicago and Joliet. Construction continued on through La Salle, and Rock Island was reached on February 22,1854, the Mississippi river bridge between Rock Island and Davenport was completed on April 22,1856. In 1857, Abraham Lincoln represented the Rock Island in an important lawsuit regarding bridges over navigable rivers, the suit had been brought by the owner of a steamboat which was destroyed by fire after running into the Mississippi river bridge. Lincoln argued that not only was the steamboat at fault in striking the bridge, the M&M was acquired by the C&RI on July 9,1866, to form the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company. The railroad expanded through construction and acquisitions in the following decades, the Rock Island stretched across Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Texas. The easternmost reach of the system was Chicago, and the system also reached Memphis, Tennessee, west, it reached Denver, Colorado, and Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Southernmost reaches were to Galveston, Texas, and Eunice, Louisiana while in a direction the Rock Island got as far as Minneapolis. The heaviest traffic was on the Chicago-to-Rock Island and Rock Island-to-Muscatine lines, in common with most American railroad companies, the Rock Island once operated an extensive passenger service. The primary routes served were, Chicago-Los Angeles, Chicago-Denver, Memphis-Tucumcari, the Rock Island ran both Limited and Local service on those routes as well as locals on many other lines on its system. In 1937, the Rock Island introduced Diesel power to its passenger service, in competition with the Santa Fe Chiefs, the Rock Island jointly operated the Golden State Limited with the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1902–1968. On this route, the Rock Islands train was marketed as a low altitude crossing of the Continental Divide, the Rock Island did not concede to the Santa Fes dominance in the Chicago-Los Angeles travel market and re-equipped the train with new streamlined equipment in 1948. At the same time, the Limited was dropped from the trains name, the local run on this line was known as the Imperial. The 1948 modernization of the Golden State occurred with some controversy, in 1947, both the Rock Island and Southern Pacific jointly advertised the coming of a new entry in the Chicago-Los Angeles travel market. The Golden Rocket was scheduled to match the Santa Fes transit time end-to-end and was to have its own dedicated trainsets, one purchased by the Rock Island. As the Rock Islands set of streamlined cars was being finished. The Rock Islands cars were delivered and would find their way into the Golden States fleet soon after delivery, the Golden State was the last first-class train on the Rock Island, retaining its dining cars and sleeping cars until its last run on February 21,1968
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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Rock Island Locomotive #627, circa 1880
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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The former Rock Island Depot at
Chillicothe, Illinois, now a railroad museum
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
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Rock Island E-8 #652 with E-6 #630 at Midland Railway, Baldwin City, KS
50.
Great Chicago Fire
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The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned from Sunday, October 8, to early Tuesday, October 10,1871. The fire killed up to 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles of Chicago, Illinois, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. The fire started at about 9,00 p. m. on October 8, the shed next to the barn was the first building to be consumed by the fire, but city officials never determined the exact cause of the blaze. There has, however, been much speculation over the years, the most popular tale blames Mrs. OLearys cow, who allegedly knocked over a lantern, others state that a group of men were gambling inside the barn and knocked over a lantern. Still other speculation suggests that the blaze was related to fires in the Midwest that day. The fires spread was aided by the use of wood as the predominant building material in a style called balloon frame. More than two thirds of the structures in Chicago at the time of the fire were made entirely of wood, with most of the houses, all of the citys sidewalks and many roads were also made of wood. In 1871, the Chicago Fire Department had 185 firefighters with just 17 horse-drawn steam engines to protect the entire city. The initial response by the department was quick, but due to an error by the watchman, Matthias Schaffer. These factors combined to turn a small barn fire into a conflagration, when firefighters finally arrived at DeKoven Street, the fire had grown and spread to neighboring buildings and was progressing towards the central business district. Firefighters had hoped that the South Branch of the Chicago River, all along the river, however, were lumber yards, warehouses, and coal yards, and barges and numerous bridges across the river. As the fire grew, the southwest wind intensified and became superheated, causing structures to catch fire from the heat, around 11,30 p. m. flaming debris blew across the river and landed on roofs and the South Side Gas Works. With the fire across the river and moving rapidly towards the heart of the city, about this time, Mayor Roswell B. Mason sent messages to nearby towns asking for help. When the courthouse caught fire, he ordered the building to be evacuated, at 2,30 a. m. on the 9th, the cupola of the courthouse collapsed, sending the great bell crashing down. Some witnesses reported hearing the sound from a mile away, as more buildings succumbed to the flames, a major contributing factor to the fire’s spread was a meteorological phenomenon known as a fire whirl. As overheated air rises, it comes into contact with cooler air and these fire whirls are likely what drove flaming debris so high and so far. Such debris was blown across the branch of the Chicago River to a railroad car carrying kerosene. The fire had jumped the river a second time and was now raging across the north side
Great Chicago Fire
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Artist's rendering of the fire, by
John R. Chapin, originally printed in
Harper's Weekly; the view faces northeast across the
Randolph Street Bridge.
Great Chicago Fire
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1868 map of Chicago, highlighting the area destroyed by the fire (location of O'Leary's barn indicated by red dot).
Great Chicago Fire
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Aftermath of the fire, corner of Dearborn and Monroe Streets, 1871
Great Chicago Fire
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Chicago Water Tower
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