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Illinois and Michigan Canal

March 07, 2023

The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In Illinois, it ran 96 miles (154 km) from the Chicago River in Bridgeport, Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle-Peru. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the railroad era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933.

Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath
a scene at Seneca, Illinois
Nearest cityJoliet, Illinois
Coordinates41°34′11″N 88°4′11″W / 41.56972°N 88.06972°W / 41.56972; -88.06972Coordinates: 41°34′11″N 88°4′11″W / 41.56972°N 88.06972°W / 41.56972; -88.06972
Area1,130 acres (4.6 km2)[1]
Built1848
NRHP reference No.66000332
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966[2]
Designated NHLJanuary 29, 1964[3]

Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath, a collection of eight engineering structures and segments of the canal between Lockport and LaSalle-Peru, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.[1][3][4]

Portions of the canal have been filled in.[1] Much of the former canal, near the Heritage Corridor transit line, has been preserved as part of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor.

Significance

In the 1800s Canals were an important mode of transportation. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Mississippi Basin to the Great Lakes Basin. The potential canal route influenced Illinois's north border. The Erie Canal and the Illinois and Michigan Canal cemented cultural and trade ties to the Northeast rather than the South. Before the canal, agriculture in the region was limited to subsistence farming. The canal made agriculture in northern Illinois profitable by opening connections to eastern markets.

History

Conception

The first known Europeans to travel the area, Father Marquette and Louis Joliet went through the Chicago Portage on their return trip. Joliet remarked that with a canal they could remove the need to portage and the French could create an empire spanning the continent.

The first quantitative survey of the portage was performed in 1816 by Stephen H. Long. It was on the basis of these measurements that he was able to make a specific proposal for a canal.[5]

With several slave states recently admitted to the Union, Nathaniel Pope and Ninian Edwards saw the opportunity to make Illinois a state. They proposed moving the border northward from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to allow the canal to be within a single state. They believed that the canal would firmly align Illinois with the free states and so Congress granted them statehood even though Illinois did not meet the population requirements.

Construction

 
The location and course of the Illinois and Michigan Canal

In 1824, Samuel D. Lockwood, one of the first commissioners of the canal, was given the authorization to hire contractors to survey a route for the canal to follow.[6]

Construction on the canal began in 1836, although it was stopped for several years due to an Illinois state financial crisis related to the Panic of 1837. The Canal Commission had a grant of 284,000 acres (115,000 ha) of federal land which it sold at $1.25 per acre ($310/km2) to finance the construction. Still, money had to be borrowed from Eastern United States and British investors to finish the canal.

Most of the canal work was done by Irish immigrants who previously worked on the Erie Canal. The work was considered dangerous and many workers died, although no official records exist to indicate how many. The Irish immigrants who toiled to build the canal were often derided as a sub-class and were treated very poorly by other citizens of the city.

The canal was finished in 1848 at a total cost of $6,170,226. Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth presided over the opening ceremony. Pumps were used to draw water to fill the canal near Chicago, which was soon supplemented by water from the Calumet Feeder Canal. The feeder was supplied by water from the Calumet River and originated in Blue Island, Il. The DuPage River provided water farther south. In 1871 the canal was deepened to speed up the current and to improve sewage disposal.

Completion

The canal was eventually 60 feet (18 m) wide and 6 feet (1.8 m) deep, with towpaths constructed along each edge to permit mules to be harnessed to tow barges along the canal. Towns were planned out along the path of the canal spaced at intervals corresponding to the length that the mules could haul the barges. It had seventeen locks and four aqueducts to cover the 140-foot (43 m) height difference between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River. From 1848 to 1852 the canal was a popular passenger route, but passenger service ended in 1853 with the opening of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad that ran parallel to the canal. The canal had its peak shipping year in 1882 and remained in use until 1933.

Experiencing a remarkable recovery from the devastating Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Chicago rebuilt rapidly along the shores of the Chicago River. The river was especially important to the development of the city since all wastes from houses, farms, the stockyards, and other industries could be dumped into the river and carried out into Lake Michigan.

Decline and replacement

 
New lock and dam structures that replaced the historic Illinois and Michigan Canal

The lake, however, was also the source of drinking water. During a tremendous storm in 1885, the rainfall washed refuse from the river, especially from the highly polluted Bubbly Creek, far out into the lake (the city water intakes are located 2 miles (3.2 km) offshore). Although no epidemics occurred, the Chicago Sanitary District (now The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District) was created by the Illinois legislature in 1889 in response to this close call.[7]

This new agency devised a plan to construct channels and canals to reverse the flow of the rivers away from Lake Michigan and divert the contaminated water downstream where it could be diluted as it flowed into the Des Plaines River and eventually the Mississippi.

In 1892, the direction of part of the Chicago River was reversed by the Army Corps of Engineers with the result that the river and much of Chicago's sewage flowed into the canal instead of into Lake Michigan. The complete reversal of the river's flow was accomplished when the Sanitary and Ship Canal was opened in 1900.

It was replaced in 1933 by the Illinois Waterway, which remains in use.

 
Illinois and Michigan Canal west of Willow Springs, where the unused canal is clogged with fallen trees

Rejuvenation

The actual origin site of the Illinois and Michigan Canal has been converted into a nature park that integrates history, ecology and art to communicate the Canal's importance in the development of Chicago. In 2003 the Chicago Park District - in cooperation with the I & M Canal Association, hired Conservation Design Forum to develop plans to convert the brownfield site into a landscape that provided for passive recreational uses in a landscape setting with native plant species. Interpretive panels built into a wall along a bike trail were designed by local high school art students.[8] The plans also called on landscape stabilization techniques to repair a significantly degraded shoreline (water levels can fluctuate as much as 5 feet).

Today much of the canal is a long, thin linear park with canoeing and a 62.5-mile (100.6 km) hiking and biking trail (constructed on the alignment of the mule tow paths). It also includes museums and historical canal buildings. It was designated the first National Heritage Corridor by US Congress in 1984.

Adjacent communities

Many towns in Northern Illinois owe their existence directly to the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Lockport, Morris, Ottawa, and LaSalle were platted by the Canal Commissioners to raise funds for the canal's construction. From east to west the towns along the path of the canal include:

Associated individuals

  •  

    Fox River Aqueduct in Ottawa, IL

  •  

    Aux Sable Creek Aqueduct, Morris, IL

  •  

    Locktenders House and lock at the Aux Sable Creek

  •  

    Goose Lake Prairie F&WA, Morris, IL

  •  

    Lock #3, Lockport, IL

  •  

    Historic Route 66, Illinois Route 53, and I&M Canal overlap in Joliet, IL

See also

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Illinois & Michigan Canal.

References

  1. ^ a b c Blanche Schroer; Grant Peterson; S. Sydney Bradford (September 14, 1975). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Illinois and Michigan Canal" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved 2009-06-21. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) and Accompanying 27 photos, undated. (2.47 MB)
  2. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  3. ^ a b "Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  4. ^ . Illinois Department of Natural Resources. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
  5. ^ Long, Stephen H. (1978). Kane, Lucile M.; Holmquist, June D.; Gliman, Carolyn (eds.). The Northern Expeditions of Stephen H. Long. Minnesota Historical Society. p. 7. ISBN 9780873511292.
  6. ^ Coffin, William (1889). Life and Times of Hon. Samuel D. Lockwood. Chicago, IL: Knight & Leonard Co. p. 41.
  7. ^ The Straight Dope: Did 90,000 people die of typhoid fever and cholera in Chicago in 1885?
  8. ^ Conservation Design Forum

Further reading

  • Putnam, James William (1918). The Illinois and Michigan Canal: A Study In Economic History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 15. Retrieved December 18, 2013.
  • Edward Ranney & Emily Harris, Prairie Passage: The Illinois and Michigan Canal Corridor. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

External links

  • Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor at U.S. National Park Service
  • Canal Corridor Association 2010-09-03 at the Wayback Machine
  • Canal and Regional History Special Collection at Lewis University
  • Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) No. IL-16-A, "Lockport Historic District, Illinois & Michigan Canal"
  • HAER No. IL-42, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Lift Lock No. 7 & Control Gate"
  • HAER No. IL-43, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, DuPage River Dam"
  • HAER No. IL-46, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Fox River Aqueduct"
  • HAER No. IL-47, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Aux Sable Creek Aqueduct"
  • HAER No. IL-92, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Lift Lock No. 10"
  • HAER No. IL-100, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Ottawa Toll House"
  • HAER No. IL-101, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Lift Lock No. 6"
  • HAER No. IL-101, "Illinois & Michigan Canal, Channahon Locktender's House"
  • Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago
  • Ottawa Visitors Center
  • Will County Historical Society, housed in original Canal Office

March 07, 2023
illinois, michigan, canal, connected, great, lakes, mississippi, river, gulf, mexico, illinois, miles, from, chicago, river, bridgeport, chicago, illinois, river, lasalle, peru, canal, crossed, chicago, portage, helped, establish, chicago, transportation, unit. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico In Illinois it ran 96 miles 154 km from the Chicago River in Bridgeport Chicago to the Illinois River at LaSalle Peru The canal crossed the Chicago Portage and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States before the railroad era It was opened in 1848 Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900 and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933 Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and TowpathU S National Register of Historic PlacesU S National Historic Landmarka scene at Seneca IllinoisShow map of IllinoisShow map of the United StatesNearest cityJoliet IllinoisCoordinates41 34 11 N 88 4 11 W 41 56972 N 88 06972 W 41 56972 88 06972 Coordinates 41 34 11 N 88 4 11 W 41 56972 N 88 06972 W 41 56972 88 06972Area1 130 acres 4 6 km2 1 Built1848NRHP reference No 66000332Significant datesAdded to NRHPOctober 15 1966 2 Designated NHLJanuary 29 1964 3 Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath a collection of eight engineering structures and segments of the canal between Lockport and LaSalle Peru was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 1 3 4 Portions of the canal have been filled in 1 Much of the former canal near the Heritage Corridor transit line has been preserved as part of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor Contents 1 Significance 2 History 2 1 Conception 2 2 Construction 2 3 Completion 2 4 Decline and replacement 2 5 Rejuvenation 3 Adjacent communities 4 Associated individuals 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External linksSignificance EditIn the 1800s Canals were an important mode of transportation The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Mississippi Basin to the Great Lakes Basin The potential canal route influenced Illinois s north border The Erie Canal and the Illinois and Michigan Canal cemented cultural and trade ties to the Northeast rather than the South Before the canal agriculture in the region was limited to subsistence farming The canal made agriculture in northern Illinois profitable by opening connections to eastern markets History EditConception Edit The first known Europeans to travel the area Father Marquette and Louis Joliet went through the Chicago Portage on their return trip Joliet remarked that with a canal they could remove the need to portage and the French could create an empire spanning the continent The first quantitative survey of the portage was performed in 1816 by Stephen H Long It was on the basis of these measurements that he was able to make a specific proposal for a canal 5 With several slave states recently admitted to the Union Nathaniel Pope and Ninian Edwards saw the opportunity to make Illinois a state They proposed moving the border northward from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to allow the canal to be within a single state They believed that the canal would firmly align Illinois with the free states and so Congress granted them statehood even though Illinois did not meet the population requirements Construction Edit The location and course of the Illinois and Michigan Canal In 1824 Samuel D Lockwood one of the first commissioners of the canal was given the authorization to hire contractors to survey a route for the canal to follow 6 Construction on the canal began in 1836 although it was stopped for several years due to an Illinois state financial crisis related to the Panic of 1837 The Canal Commission had a grant of 284 000 acres 115 000 ha of federal land which it sold at 1 25 per acre 310 km2 to finance the construction Still money had to be borrowed from Eastern United States and British investors to finish the canal Most of the canal work was done by Irish immigrants who previously worked on the Erie Canal The work was considered dangerous and many workers died although no official records exist to indicate how many The Irish immigrants who toiled to build the canal were often derided as a sub class and were treated very poorly by other citizens of the city The canal was finished in 1848 at a total cost of 6 170 226 Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth presided over the opening ceremony Pumps were used to draw water to fill the canal near Chicago which was soon supplemented by water from the Calumet Feeder Canal The feeder was supplied by water from the Calumet River and originated in Blue Island Il The DuPage River provided water farther south In 1871 the canal was deepened to speed up the current and to improve sewage disposal Completion Edit The canal was eventually 60 feet 18 m wide and 6 feet 1 8 m deep with towpaths constructed along each edge to permit mules to be harnessed to tow barges along the canal Towns were planned out along the path of the canal spaced at intervals corresponding to the length that the mules could haul the barges It had seventeen locks and four aqueducts to cover the 140 foot 43 m height difference between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River From 1848 to 1852 the canal was a popular passenger route but passenger service ended in 1853 with the opening of the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific Railroad that ran parallel to the canal The canal had its peak shipping year in 1882 and remained in use until 1933 Experiencing a remarkable recovery from the devastating Great Chicago Fire of 1871 Chicago rebuilt rapidly along the shores of the Chicago River The river was especially important to the development of the city since all wastes from houses farms the stockyards and other industries could be dumped into the river and carried out into Lake Michigan Decline and replacement Edit New lock and dam structures that replaced the historic Illinois and Michigan Canal The lake however was also the source of drinking water During a tremendous storm in 1885 the rainfall washed refuse from the river especially from the highly polluted Bubbly Creek far out into the lake the city water intakes are located 2 miles 3 2 km offshore Although no epidemics occurred the Chicago Sanitary District now The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District was created by the Illinois legislature in 1889 in response to this close call 7 This new agency devised a plan to construct channels and canals to reverse the flow of the rivers away from Lake Michigan and divert the contaminated water downstream where it could be diluted as it flowed into the Des Plaines River and eventually the Mississippi In 1892 the direction of part of the Chicago River was reversed by the Army Corps of Engineers with the result that the river and much of Chicago s sewage flowed into the canal instead of into Lake Michigan The complete reversal of the river s flow was accomplished when the Sanitary and Ship Canal was opened in 1900 It was replaced in 1933 by the Illinois Waterway which remains in use Illinois and Michigan Canal west of Willow Springs where the unused canal is clogged with fallen trees Rejuvenation Edit The actual origin site of the Illinois and Michigan Canal has been converted into a nature park that integrates history ecology and art to communicate the Canal s importance in the development of Chicago In 2003 the Chicago Park District in cooperation with the I amp M Canal Association hired Conservation Design Forum to develop plans to convert the brownfield site into a landscape that provided for passive recreational uses in a landscape setting with native plant species Interpretive panels built into a wall along a bike trail were designed by local high school art students 8 The plans also called on landscape stabilization techniques to repair a significantly degraded shoreline water levels can fluctuate as much as 5 feet Today much of the canal is a long thin linear park with canoeing and a 62 5 mile 100 6 km hiking and biking trail constructed on the alignment of the mule tow paths It also includes museums and historical canal buildings It was designated the first National Heritage Corridor by US Congress in 1984 Adjacent communities EditMany towns in Northern Illinois owe their existence directly to the Illinois and Michigan Canal Lockport Morris Ottawa and LaSalle were platted by the Canal Commissioners to raise funds for the canal s construction From east to west the towns along the path of the canal include Bridgeport Chicago neighborhood Summit Willow Springs Lemont Romeoville Lockport Joliet Channahon Morris Seneca Marseilles Ottawa Utica LaSalle PeruAssociated individuals EditLouis Joliet Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard Nathaniel Pope Ninian Edwards Abraham Lincoln John T Stuart Fox River Aqueduct in Ottawa IL Aux Sable Creek Aqueduct Morris IL Locktenders House and lock at the Aux Sable Creek Goose Lake Prairie F amp WA Morris IL Lock 3 Lockport IL Historic Route 66 Illinois Route 53 and I amp M Canal overlap in Joliet ILSee also Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Illinois amp Michigan Canal Channahon State Park Gebhard Woods State Park Matthew Laflin David Leavitt banker List of National Historic Landmarks in Illinois Shabbona Trail includes 20 miles 32 km of the Illinois and Michigan Canal Trail Treaty of St Louis 1816 The Volunteer canal boat References Edit a b c Blanche Schroer Grant Peterson S Sydney Bradford September 14 1975 National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Illinois and Michigan Canal PDF National Park Service Retrieved 2009 06 21 a href Template Cite journal html title Template Cite journal cite journal a Cite journal requires journal help and Accompanying 27 photos undated 2 47 MB National Register Information System National Register of Historic Places National Park Service January 23 2007 a b Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath National Historic Landmark summary listing National Park Service Retrieved 2007 10 11 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Illinois Department of Natural Resources Archived from the original on January 29 2013 Retrieved February 19 2013 Long Stephen H 1978 Kane Lucile M Holmquist June D Gliman Carolyn eds The Northern Expeditions of Stephen H Long Minnesota Historical Society p 7 ISBN 9780873511292 Coffin William 1889 Life and Times of Hon Samuel D Lockwood Chicago IL Knight amp Leonard Co p 41 The Straight Dope Did 90 000 people die of typhoid fever and cholera in Chicago in 1885 Conservation Design ForumFurther reading EditPutnam James William 1918 The Illinois and Michigan Canal A Study In Economic History Chicago University of Chicago Press p 15 Retrieved December 18 2013 Edward Ranney amp Emily Harris Prairie Passage The Illinois and Michigan Canal Corridor Urbana IL University of Illinois Press 1998 External links EditIllinois amp Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor at U S National Park Service Canal Corridor Association Archived 2010 09 03 at the Wayback Machine Canal and Regional History Special Collection at Lewis University Illinois amp Michigan Canal State Trail Chicago Historical Society Illinois amp Michigan Canal Historic American Engineering Record HAER No IL 16 A Lockport Historic District Illinois amp Michigan Canal HAER No IL 42 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Lift Lock No 7 amp Control Gate HAER No IL 43 Illinois amp Michigan Canal DuPage River Dam HAER No IL 46 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Fox River Aqueduct HAER No IL 47 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Aux Sable Creek Aqueduct HAER No IL 92 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Lift Lock No 10 HAER No IL 100 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Ottawa Toll House HAER No IL 101 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Lift Lock No 6 HAER No IL 101 Illinois amp Michigan Canal Channahon Locktender s House The Illinois and Michigan Canal 1827 1911 A Selection of Documents from the Illinois State Archives Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago Ottawa Visitors Center Will County Historical Society housed in original Canal Office Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Illinois and Michigan Canal amp oldid 1135809117, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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