Historic Towns of the Western States Part 15

At an early day "prairie schooners," pioneers of the great freight trains to come, laden with grain from the fertile areas round about began to line the prairie roads leading to Chicago. In 1839, two years after the city was begun, a crude grain elevator was constructed. The farmers, too poor to furnish sacks, brought their grain in sheets, blankets, and pieces of canvas. It was hoisted by hand with block and tackle to the elevator, and in the year mentioned 2900 bushels of wheat, consigned to Black Rock, New York, were dumped loose into the hold of the brig _Osceola_. From this primitive beginning has grown a mighty volume of trade in grain. In 1900 the wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley shipped from Chicago amounted to 232,267,109 bushels, while the receipts aggregated 307,723,135 bushels.

It was not until 1843 that the Common Council came to the conclusion that the place was sufficiently advanced as a city to warrant the enactment of an ordinance declaring that hogs should no longer be permitted to run at large in the streets. In 1900, far from being unwelcome, over 8,000,000 hogs, safely penned in cars, arrived in the city and were sent to the slaughter.

In writing of Chicago it is customary to deal in superlatives, and this is necessary in the nature of things. Its Union Stock Yards cover 400 acres, nearly twice the area of the original town. Twenty miles of streets thread this meat-packing colony, which pays wages amounting to nearly $9,000,000 a year. In 1900 there were shipped to Chicago 277,205 carloads of hogs, cattle, sheep, etc. Its trade in grain leads every city in the world, while its general mercantile traffic is surpa.s.sed by few.

The first railroad at that time was the Galena and Chicago Union, which was chartered January 16, 1836. Galena at that time was believed to be destined far to outrival her neighbor, and therefore demanded and secured the place of honor in the t.i.tle of the road. To-day thirty-nine distinct railroads enter Chicago, more than half the railway systems of America make that city their objective point, and the aggregate distance travelled by freight and pa.s.senger trains daily entering the metropolis is over 80,000 miles. In the thunder of this traffic the clamor of rivalry long since died away. The British critic, Mr. Archer, remarked that he was unable to detect the slightest evidence of compet.i.tion with Chicago even in a "Pisgah view from the top of the Auditorium."

The employment of large adjectives in the recital of the city's history is not without warrant. "The trouble with you people in Chicago," remarked a visitor, "is that you exaggerate too much." "We have to," retorted a citizen, proudly, "in fact we have to lie to tell the truth." Even when we speak of the fire of 1871, we must call it the "great Chicago fire," for never before perhaps in the history of the world were so many of the piled-up monuments of man's hands consumed so rapidly. Such awful moments, happily, seldom come in the history of communities. It was as if the fires of Dante's Inferno had been permitted for a night and day to devastate a great city of this planet. One thousand four hundred and seventy acres of buildings were utterly consumed. The entire business portion of the city vanished in smoke and flame. One hundred thousand persons were left homeless and in many cases penniless. Seventeen thousand four hundred and fifty buildings were destroyed, the total valuation of the loss by fire being $186,000,000.

In the presence of a catastrophe, so vast that the imagination reeled as the eye wandered over the mighty paths where the cyclones of fire had swept, social inequalities and race prejudices were ignored. All right-minded men stood together in a common bond of fellowship. Doubtless much of the present spirit of amalgamation of the people of the city is an outgrowth of the calamity which thirty years ago brought the representatives of those divers races elbow to elbow in the common cause of rebuilding their homes and reconstructing their lines of industry. The riots at the Haymarket did not indicate bad blood between the races of the city, but merely an incidental if not accidental social unrest not uncommon in all our greater cities.

[Ill.u.s.tration RUINS OF THE GREAT FIRE, CHICAGO.]

The city staggered, but did not fall, under the woful wreck the great fire wrought. Through a grim schooling of disaster in the past the city had developed a force of character that fire could not consume. "Nothing,"

exclaimed the great French Cardinal and Premier of the seventeenth century, when he was temporarily overthrown, "nothing remains but the indomitable spirit of Richelieu." Chicago had similar faith in her own inherent power.

There were some broken spirits who, gazing on the melancholy ruin, caught no glimpse of the magnificent city that was to rise, as if by command of a magician's wand, upon the smoking desolation. But the majority did not permit the calamity to crush. The faithful were exhorted to rebuild the city. It was predicted then that Chicago would live, and live to be so mighty and so vast that the great fire would be but an incident in its history. The city was to live because beyond it were the giant forces, the teeming millions, the imperial area of the mighty West, which, having made Chicago the gateway to the East, would recreate it under the same natural necessities.

The city's optimistic faith and determination enlisted the sympathy of the world, and $5,000,000 in relief contributions poured in and thousands of telegrams offering credit to merchants supplemented this hearty and timely exhibition of Good Samaritanism. The deeds of valor displayed by firemen and citizens in fighting an unequal combat with the fire were equalled only by the heroism which appeared in the rebuilding of the city. The first structure to rise over the ruins was a board shanty, twelve by sixteen feet in dimensions. It was on Washington Street, between Dearborn and Clark, near the site of a former flourishing block, where W.D. Kerfoot had conducted a large business in real estate. The tiny structure was built hastily on the morning of October 10th, while the surrounding ashes and heaps of twisted iron were so hot that the little building had to be set in the middle of the street. The comical cabin bore the legend, "Kerfoot's Block. Everything gone but wife, children, and energy." Small as the shanty was, it was an inspiration. It marked the beginning of a city now so vast that the munic.i.p.ality existing before the fire seems but a shadow. Through the city run paved streets whose aggregate length would reach from Chicago to New York, and start the traveller some distance on his way to Boston.

More than 100,000 street lights, kept "trimmed and burning" by the munic.i.p.ality at an annual cost of over $1,000,000, twinkle in the city by night.

Over a quarter of a billion of gallons of water are consumed daily by a city now protected by an efficient fire department against a repet.i.tion of the disaster of 1871. Nearly 1500 miles of sewers preserve the sanitation, while the superb ingenuity of engineers has changed the courses and reversed the currents of rivers, and with connecting ca.n.a.ls turned the city's sewage toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The ambition of this characteristically American city is to excel in everything. When she undertook to hold a World's Fair, she determined to eclipse any previous exposition, and to secure a phenomenal attendance.

When she held a Parliament of Religions she arranged that the faiths of every clime should be represented by their most learned and pious men, and that the teachings there set forth should const.i.tute a memorable contribution to the best thought of the world. It has been said of Chicago that when she decides to be the home of the greatest poet among mankind, she will go out and get him, or, better still, produce him.

Cities affecting a more advanced culture sniff at the stock-yard atmosphere which they pretend to believe permeates the literary life of Chicago, and Eugene Field, in playful mood, accepting the jibes of distant critics, printed as the frontispiece of his _Culture's Garland_ a wreath of sausage links; but William D. Howells has acknowledged that out of Chicago is coming a literary virility destined to leave cla.s.sic record in the annals of letters. Field himself occupies an honored place in the American Pantheon, and his "Little Boy Blue," though dead, forever sings his way to our firesides.

The city takes high rank as a centre for advanced education. In addition to technical schools like the Armour Inst.i.tute, it has two famous Universities; the Chicago, and the Northwestern. The Chicago University began its career ten years ago. The old denominational University of the same name having been sold at auction under foreclosure, John D.

Rockefeller decided to reorganize it and found a great inst.i.tution of learning, and to that end pledged a portion of his fortune and secured as President, Dr. William R. Harper, of Yale. The University opened in 1892 with 702 students. To-day it has nearly 4000. It began with no less than 135 instructors; it now has 205. The University made its start with grounds, buildings, and equipments valued at $1,600,000, and invested funds amounting to $1,500,000. To-day its productive funds aggregate over $15,000,000. Women have been prominent among the University's donors, and in all the departments women students enjoy equal status with men. A student may enter at the beginning of any quarter and receive his degree at the end of any term. The colleges continue throughout the year. Recently the Chicago Inst.i.tute, founded by Mrs. Emmons Blaine for training school teachers, was absorbed by the University. In fact, Dr. Harper has succeeded in merging so many professional schools that he has been amiably accused of attempting to form an educational trust. The Northwestern University, located partly in the city and partly in Evanston, a suburb, was founded in 1851. It has 296 instructors and over 3000 students. Its productive funds amount to over $3,000,000. Although conducted under denominational auspices, its charter provides that no particular religious faith shall be required of students. It has a campus of 45 acres on the Lake Michigan sh.o.r.e. The University includes a college of Liberal Arts, and schools of medicine, law, pharmacy, dentistry, music, and theology. Many of the departments are coeducational.

[Ill.u.s.tration PUBLIC LIBRARY, CHICAGO.]

The public schools of Chicago are crowded with three quarters of a million children of parents for few of whom "Plato and the swing of Pleiades and the tall reaches of the peaks of song" had a meaning. And these children of every kindred and tongue are not herded into cla.s.ses and indifferently taught. Modern science a.s.sists them from the start with anthropometric examinations, and scientific methods are in use in every school. There could be no more hopeful "sign and portent" of the city's future than is furnished by its public schools.

Voluntarily, by popular vote of the people, civil service was established in all branches of the city administration, and the principle laid down that industrious merit rather than political influence should fill the thousands of positions in the school department and city branches in general, a graphic ill.u.s.tration that the spoils system is not a Chicago ideal. Benevolent inst.i.tutions thrive under the munificent endowment of its men of wealth. Seers like Professor David Swing have preached the Gospel to an eager people, thousands on Sunday being turned away, unable to press to the pews through the mult.i.tude of churchgoers. All these phenomena present the interesting psychological truth that with Chicago's liberty and cosmopolitan make-up has been developed a rea.s.suring force "making for righteousness." The city is not yet prepared for canonization, but in many ways it is, in its largeness of life and tolerance, an example to the cities of the world. She is still apt, perhaps, in speaking, for example, of her art galleries to dwell overmuch upon the cost of the buildings and paintings and the number of acres.

The unprejudiced critic or historian knows that not all Chicago is pork and pig-iron, though why these industries are not as honorable as poetry and prose, perhaps they who sit in the seat of the scornful will explain.

Booker T. Washington well says that a people cannot be truly great until they recognize that it is as dignified to till the soil as it is to pen an epic, and in the same line of thought it might be said that a people who "live laborious days" packing meat and handling lumber, particularly by the thousand carloads, are not necessarily belated travellers on the highway that leads to national integrity and renown.

In wealth, in population, in the high character and eager attendance in her great schools, in libraries, art, and architecture, as evidenced by inst.i.tutes, buildings, and academies of design, in her letters, as displayed by the literary output, in her spiritual conquests, as shown in the teachings of her poets and preachers, and even in the periodical reforms that purify the political atmosphere, Chicago's future will undoubtedly be, like her past, phenomenal.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTE:

[10] Among the Sacs, "Checagau" was the name of one of their valiant warriors and colonizers, and meant "He that stands by the tree."

Among the several tribes of the Algonquin group "Chekago," "Chicagong,"

etc., was p.r.o.nounced in a variety of ways and had as many meanings.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

MADISON

THE CITY OF THE FOUR LAKES

BY REUBEN G. THWAITES

In 1836, that portion of Michigan Territory which lay west of Lake Michigan, was erected into the Territory of Wisconsin. Within the borders of the nascent commonwealth there lived at that time about twelve thousand whites and nine thousand Indians. Many of the sites of future cities of Wisconsin were already occupied by agricultural settlers, isolated or in tiny groups.

Green Bay, a straggling French-Canadian settlement, had come down from the seventeenth century, maintaining a sickly existence upon the fur trade and the coasting traffic of the upper Great Lakes; Forts Winnebago (at Portage) and Crawford (at Prairie du Chien) were surrounded by meagre hamlets, chiefly of French creoles; the lead-mining region in the southwest, although spa.r.s.ely settled, contained the bulk of the white population, with Mineral Point as its centre--a village having at the time an apparently brighter prospect than the new settlement at the mouth of Milwaukee River; there were also a few notches carved, at wide intervals, from the gloomy forest bordering the western sh.o.r.e of Lake Michigan. Outside of the settlements just enumerated, Wisconsin was practically uninhabited by whites. Here and there was to be found an Indian trader, the Yankee successor of the _coureur de bois_ of the old French _regime_, or some exceptionally adventurous farmer; but their far-separated cabins only emphasized the density of the wilderness, through which roamed untrammelled the shiftless, gipsy-like aborigines,--the comparatively harmless Chippewas, Menomonies, Pottawatomies and Winnebagoes.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE STATE HOUSE, MADISON.]

On the 4th of July the territorial officers of Wisconsin qualified at Mineral Point, with Henry Dodge, a Black Hawk War hero, as Governor. In October following, the first Legislature a.s.sembled within a two-story battlement-fronted house in the little lead-region hamlet of Belmont. The highway which it faced bristled with stumps, while miners' shafts and prospectors' holes thickly dimpled the shanty neighborhood. A month was spent in selecting a capital for the infant Territory. There were seventeen applicants. Some of them were actual settlements, like Green Bay, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, Racine, Portage, Belmont, Mineral Point, and Platteville; but others were "paper towns," existing only on maps made by real-estate speculators. Of such shadowy substance was Madison, the victor.

James Duane Doty, who had been United States Circuit Judge for the country west of Lake Michigan, had formed a town-site partnership with Stevens T.

Mason, then Governor of Michigan Territory. These gentlemen preempted several tracts of government land at presumably desirable spots in the wilderness. Doty advanced the respective claims of these tracts, giving them maps and attractive names. His favorite was an undulating isthmus between Lakes Monona and Mendota,[11] in the heart of Southern Wisconsin, midway between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. This claimant he named "Madison," after the third President of the United States.

It was freely alleged at the time that Doty presented choice lots in Madison to his legislative friends. However this may be, the ostensible arguments produced were: that the chief centres of settlement in the northeast (Green Bay), the southeast (Milwaukee), and the southwest (the lead region) were so widely separated and had such divergent interests that to select one would alienate the others and make it impossible to harmoniously conduct the territorial government; again, that to build up one corner of the Territory at the expense of the others would unequally distribute the population; it was also urged that the unsettled central portion of the Territory needed the incentive to growth which the capital would give it; and lastly, Doty, the only man in Belmont that winter who seems to have known Madison, declared the site to be the most beautiful spot in the Wisconsin forest. And thus Madison won.

Beyond the understanding that the centre of the Capitol Park was to be the common corner of four sections of land which met near the middle of the isthmus, there had as yet been no thought of how this projected town in the woods should be laid out. A French half-breed, Olivier Armel, who had a temporary trading shanty on the tract, half brush and half canvas, was the only man whom the surveyor found when he arrived in a blinding snowstorm in February (1837) to set the stakes in this virgin wilderness for the future State House of Wisconsin. The streets of the town were laid out, so far as possible, upon the lines of the national capital: wide avenues radiating from the Capitol Park upon the points of the compa.s.s were bisected by other highways paralleling the sh.o.r.es of the two princ.i.p.al lakes. For names of the thoroughfares, the patriotic surveyor had recourse to the list of signatures to the federal Const.i.tution, probably the only instance of a city's streets being exclusively named from this venerable body of lawgivers.

The first dwelling in Madison was a log house built in April by one Eben Peck, for the entertainment of the mechanics who were expected out from Milwaukee to construct the State House. It was June 10th before the building commissioner and his thirty-six workmen put in an appearance, after a toilsome overland journey of ten days through rain and mud, with no roads, and unbridged rivers which had either to be forded or swam. On the 4th of July the conerstone was laid "with appropriate toasts and speeches"

by a small knot of territorial officials.

[Ill.u.s.tration THE FIRST EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE (STILL STANDING) IN USE BY GOVERNOR DOTY.]

It was January, 1839, before the territorial Legislature could be accommodated at Madison; and even then the situation brought little comfort. Says a pioneer of those days: "With the session came crowds of people. The public houses were literally crammed--shakedowns were looked upon as a luxury, and lucky was the guest whose fortune it was to rest his weary limbs on a straw or hay mattress."

The little village was charmingly situated in the primeval forest. One of Madison's early teachers thus wrote of the hamlet of his young manhood:

"Those who only know of Madison now, have but a feeble conception of its wonderful and fascinating beauty at the beginning. In 1839 it had the look of a well-kept lawn, shaded by fine white-oak and burr-oak trees, with a fragrant fringe of red cedar all about the lake sh.o.r.es. There was then no underbrush and thicket such as sprung up soon, when the semi-annual fires ceased to do the duty of the rake and mower; but the eye had a stretch quite uninterrupted, except as the surface rose in beautiful green knolls on either lake. The lakes then lay in natural silver beauty, prettily framed in pebbly beach. For simple, quiet beauty, Madison in 1839 was unequalled by anything I remember."

Despite its natural attractiveness, and its presumably favorable location, Madison was a plant of slow growth. In the summer of 1838 the census revealed the presence here of only sixty-two people, and it is recorded that there were at that time "not more than a dozen houses, built and in process of erection, counting every cabin and shanty within three miles of the Capitol," while Indian wigwams were frequently set up within sight of the doors. Four years later there were but 172 people, and in 1846 but 632.

By the close of 1850, however, the population had, largely as the result of a mild "boom" in that year, grown to 1672. Five years later Horace Greeley and Bayard Taylor paid the place a visit, and in letters to the New York _Tribune_ highly extolled its beauties. As a result there was an almost immediate increase of population and a considerable advance in the price of real estate; so that at the outbreak of the Civil War there were 7000 Madisonians.

[Ill.u.s.tration PROFILE ROCK ON LAKE MENDOTA.]

Notwithstanding the general prevalence of financial stringency, Madison prospered during the war. The State's troops were largely mobilized here, and constantly enlivened the streets; a great deal of money was necessarily spent by the State and nation for supplies and salaries, as well as by the soldiers themselves, so that throughout it all the town grew substantially.

In 1870 there were 10,000 citizens, but the next decade only slightly advanced this census. About 1882, however, a variety of causes led to the commencement of a stronger growth--chiefly the rapid development of the State University, the expansion of the State's administrative affairs, the bettering of railroad facilities, and an enlargement of local manufacturing interests. During the past eighteen years there has been a steady gain, with every indication of permanency; the census of 1900 revealed the presence at the Wisconsin capital of 20,000 residents, while an additional 5000 dwell in closely ab.u.t.ting suburbs.

Frequent attempts to remove the capital to Milwaukee were long a potent factor in r.e.t.a.r.ding the development of Madison. In 1870 the effort was nearly successful. The fact, however, that the State had by this time invested large sums of money in public buildings in and around Madison, particularly in the State University,--which inst.i.tution must, by the terms of the const.i.tution, be situated "at or near the seat of State government,"--has of late years cooled the ardor of advocates of removal, so that no fear of renewed agitation is now entertained.

In the early annals of this peaceful little city in the undulating oak grove between Monona and Mendota,--surrounded on every hand by far-stretching lakes and marshes, and thus in a measure isolated from her rural neighbors,--the historian finds little of stirring interest; and that little almost always the reflex of the Legislature, which annually until 1882, when the sessions were made biennial, came and went with much bustle and sometimes brawl. The legislative sessions were, in ante-bellum days, the events of the year, and attracted prominent men from all quarters of Wisconsin. The crude hotels were filled each winter with legislators, lobbyists and visiting politicians. The humors of the time were often uncouth. There was a deal of horse-play, hard drinking, and profanity, and occasionally a personal encounter during the heat of discussion: as in 1842, when Charles C.P. Arndt, of Brown, was killed on the floor of the council chamber by his fellow-member, James R. Vineyard, of Grant, an event to which d.i.c.kens alluded in his _American Notes_, and which gained for Wisconsin an unenviable notoriety the country over. But an undercurrent of good nature was generally observable, and strong attachments were more frequently noticeable than feuds.