Chicago, the Great Lakes, and the Origins of Federal Urban Environmental Policy

Abstract

Just after midnight on 17 January 1900, a special train pulled out of Chicago carrying a contingent of public officials on a secret mission to Lockport, about 30 miles to the southwest along the Des Plaines and Illinois River Valleys. They were racing to beat an injunction that was expected to be issued later that day by the United States Supreme Court. The managers of the Sanitary District of Chicago (SDC) were headed for a dam that controlled the water level in a brand new, 30-mile ship canal and drainage channel. Touted as the world's largest earth-moving project, the $33, 000, 000 waterway promised not only to solve the city's sanitation problems but also to boost its economy as the centerpiece of a grand, deep-water highway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Reaching their destination before noon, they ordered the dam's “bear trap” doors lowered, sending a rush of water down the Illinois River. The opening of the canal was so hurried that unfinished construction projects five miles downstream at Joliet were swept away in the ensuing flood, creating a sudden danger of inundating the city.