PORT OF CHICAGO
Lake
Michigan had almost no natural harbors and only lighters and bateaux,
vessels used to off-load cargo from larger ships, were able to enter
the mouth of the Chicago River. Schooners and steamboats bound for Chicago
had to anchor a half-mile or more off the beach, and by means of the
lighters, discharged their cargoes.
Work
on a Chicago harbor began in 1834, and almost from the first cutting
of the channel through the Lake Michigan sandbar, lake craft made use
of its shelter and harbor facilities. By 1835, sufficient progress had
been made on the harbor to allow the schooner Illinois, with a capacity
of one hundred tons, to pass through and enter the Chicago River.
Ship building began in Chicago in 1835 in a shipyard
on Goose Island, located in the North Branch of the Chicago River. Another
yard was established in 1842, just below the Rush Street Bridge. From
1850, the building of vessels at Chicago and for Chicago trade was such
a large element of the city’s commerce that it became impossible
to document each craft built or to record each arrival or departure.
In 1838, one year after Chicago was incorporated as
a city, the first shipment of wheat—78 bushels—was made
eastward via the lakes. Early Chicago businessman Charles Walker shipped
these bushels to Buffalo aboard a steamer.
By
1837, a southern pier, extending a total distance of 1,852 feet, had
been completed from a point opposite Fort Dearborn across the old river
channel and out to Lake Michigan. The north pier was pushed out into
the lake by 1,200 feet, and only a small amount of the old sandbar remained
between the river and the lake. In 1838, an additional $30,000 was appropriated
for the harbor, but the improvements were not successful: the lake's
currents rapidly re-deposited the sandbars, and the winds blew sand
from the beach into the harbor itself.
In 1869, the north pier was fully completed. It extended
out into Lake Michigan to the northeast of the lighthouse, channeling
into the Chicago River. Just south of the Chicago River Channel and
east of Michigan Avenue was an area acquired by the Illinois Central
Railroad.
The
movement of commercial cargo over the Great Lakes has occured for hundreds
of years, but the operation of a commercial passenger service, running
on a timetable, had but a brief 148-year existence. Passenger service
commenced in April 1817, when the Ontario began operating on Lake Erie.
It ended on November 28, 1965, when the S.S. Assiniboia, of the Canadian
Pacific Railway Line, steamed out of Port McNicholl, Canada. The record
of disasters and the loss of life on the Great Lakes, punctuated with
that of the S.S. Eastland at the Chicago River in 1915 (a loss of 815
lives), and the fire on the S.S. Noronic at Toronto in 1949 (139 lives
lost), resulted in the imposition of increasingly stringent safety regulations
upon inland shipping, driving the magnificent lake steamers out of business.
Contact
the Chicago Public Library For More Information
The
S.S. Alabama in the Chicago Harbor, 1934. Robert H. Kennedy, photographer.
The
most photographed Goodrich steamer of all time, the Alabama was commissioned
in 1910, and served on the cross-lake passenger and cargo route for
many years. The Goodrich Transit Company ceased operations in 1932,
and thereafter the Alabama was chartered from her new bondholders by
the Garland & Sullivan Steamship Company, among many others. By
the early 1960s, the Alabama had become unprofitable, and ended her
days as a stripped-down construction barge in the Saginaw Bay, Michigan
area.
Reproduction
of a photograph. The S.S. Minnesota, n.d. Robert H. Kennedy, photographer.
The S.S. Minnesota began as the iron-package freighter, the Harlem,
in Wyandotte, Michigan in 1888. In 1911, she was converted to a passenger
steamer for her new owner, the Chicago & Duluth Transportation Company.
It was then that she was christened the Minnesota. In 1913, she was
sold to the Lake Michigan Steamship Company, and in 1915 went to the
Northern Michigan Transporation Company (as shown here). In 1917, she
was sold to the U.S. Shipping Board, cut in half and transported to
the East Coast where she served as a hospital ship during World War
I. The Minnesota ended her days in 1931, in Jacksonville, Florida after
a series of failures as an amusement vessel and a floating hotel.
Photos
Milwaukee
River, looking north from the Buffalo Bridge. 1910 (Chicago Daily News)
Two
ships sailing near the entrance to the Chicago River with the skyline
in the background. 1927 (Chicago Daily News)
Mouth
of the Chicago River, looking out toward Lake Michigan past pillings
in the water foreground.
1908
(Chicago Daily News)
Edward
E. Skeeles, schooner, docked on Chicago waterway. 1912 (Chicago Daily
News)
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