Chicago Sewers Collection

From the establishment of Fort Dearborn in 1803 along the Chicago River to the present day, water and sanitation have always been crucial to Chicago. In the 1830s soldiers from Fort Dearborn cut a new channel through a sandbar that had blocked the mouth of the Chicago River. This channel provided direct access to the river, creating a navigable harbor for ships. The recently incorporated village of Chicago began to grow rapidly on both banks of the Chicago River. Chicago’s new settlers brought livestock and waste. These residents kept hogs and cattle in the alleys. Manure from barns was dumped into the streets and dead livestock were piled along the waterfront. As the village grew, the new residents built further back from the river. When rain fell on Chicago’s low-lying soil, filth collected in shallow bogs and sinkholes. As conditions worsened, the frontier town dug ditches and built streets slanted toward the river, so that waste would drain away when it rained. Garbage was hurled into the ditches and clogged drainage. Even when this primitive system of sanitation worked, it merely shifted the sewage into the river, creating thick, smelly cesspools. By 1845, Chicago was facing an environmental crisis.

Cholera struck Chicago in 1849 and again in 1854. Six consecutive years of cholera and dysentery epidemics impelled the establishment of the Board of Sewerage Commissioners in February 1855. William B. Ogden (Chicago’s first Mayor) was chosen to head the commission, and later, in 1855, Ogden brought Boston engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough to Chicago to design the first comprehensive system of underground sewers in the United States. The Board of Sewerage Commissioners adopted Chesbrough’s plan to drain sewage into the Chicago River, in order to limit the cost and extent of the proposed sewer system. By the spring of 1856 Chesbrough had convinced the Commissioners that the level of Chicago’s streets was much too low to adequately drain the city’s new sewers. He proposed raising the grade of the streets six to ten feet. In this way sewers could be laid on top of existing streets and covered with dirt, and guttered streets could be paved at the new level. Raising the street level created space, not only to accommodate sewer pipes, but gas and water mains as well. Having established a new grade, the process of lifting the city out of the muck began. The Chicago River was dredged to deepen it for sewage, and the soil from the river bottom was used to raise the level of the streets. Owners lifted buildings to meet the new street level; in some cases whole blocks were raised at a time.

The city has faced and overcome many sanitation challenges since Ellis Chesbrough’s arrival in Chicago. In the latter part of the 19th century, the dynamic growth of Chicago’s industries produced an acute industrial waste problem in the Chicago River, which was unsuccessfully combated by a series of enlargements to the Illinois and Michigan Canal, intended to cause the River to flow southwest down the Canal. Later, the establishment of the Chicago Sanitary District in 1889, one of the first regional authorities in the nation, led ultimately to the January 2, 1900, reversal of the flow of the Chicago River, so that waste is carried away from Lake Michigan. Through the years, as new housing was constructed further away from the center of the city, Chicago’s sewers were extended to meet it. By 1930 Chicago’s sewer system was the most extensive in the world.