Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1893 — THE WORLD'S FAIR CITY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE WORLD'S FAIR CITY.

correspondence: The > > visitor to the World’s S'- Pair will have seen "the 1” grandest show on earth” 'fN when he gets through jr j with that great intertill lii irWT7 national exposition, but W M-’Uu i' e w iii not h ave fully mT"# nrti* 1U P r °fited by the opporrrvr(A tunities his sojourn otJnV.!4UU t° rß unless, in addition, v <Ly he has devoted at least SySjM?) a iew days to an inspection of the wonders of the World’s Fair city Itself. Chicago is the metropolitan marvel of the universe, and the stranger who takes in its main points of interest intelligently may gain an experience profitable, pleasing and instructive, and know in the true sense of th§ woid what a real, modern city, and a representative American city at that, means, in these latter days of rapid progress. There are older cities, but not one in the galaxy claiming over a million inhabitants' is so typical of the elements that go to “make the desert bloom as the rose,” and perform the transition in an incredibly brief space of time. As is it wonderful to contemplate the fair White, City at Jackson Park as the result of only two years’ labor, so does it require a stupendous effort of the imagination to realize that Chicago, in less than half a century, has sprung up as if by magic on a site which, in the early ’4o’s wai the lone home of the prairie wolf and the wild swainp fowl.

A Bit of History. Viewed in a historical light Chicago has something more to boast of than the novelty, rush and bustle of the average frontier town of mushroom growth. Tragedy haunted its inception, mighty strrows dignified its maturer ,growth. The visitor contemplating a passing glance at the fair city by the lake, or the sojourner outlining a systematic inspection of its artistic, mercantile, and material splendors may, therefore, both profit by a preparatory peep into the story of the great metropolis, for the same is unique and impressive. Its original name, “Cheecagua,” derived from that of a long line of Indian chiefs, was a happy selection, for it signified “strong.” It was first known’geographically as Fort Che.’agou in 1683, having been located as a station or stopping place by the good French priest, Father Marquette, ten years previous. It shared the inconsequential fate of border points until 1804, when the government built Fort Dearborn near its lake limit, which was destroyed by the Indians in 1812, amid a general massacre of its white inhabitants. Bebuilt, around this border stockade began to cluster hardy pioneers from the East, their numbers increasing, until August 10, 1833, a town organization was lormed, the leaders of which, together with representatives of the government, the following month met in council with some 7, t00 Pottawattomies, who held an aboriginal claim to the district and arranged for their removal west of the Mississippi Kiver. Then Chicago started on its race of wealth and progress. Four years later it emerged from obscurity as a full-fledged city with some 4,000 inhabitants, in ten years it had 30,000 people, in twenty 112,000, and, in 1871, fairly reaching the 300,000 mark, its proud inhabitants went to sleep one

night,, to awaken with their homes, their palaces of industry and art, all the accumulated wealth of years,swept into nothingness at a single fiery breath. The Great Fire. The great conflagration of Oct 9, 1871, thrilled the entire world with its sudden awfulness. One division of the city and the richest part of another ■Were entirely devastated. When men found time to reckon up their losses, 200 lay dead. 9s,sott were homeless, and property to the value of $620,U(M,000 was in ashes. Such a disaster might well induce men to give the spot over to the bat and the owl, or, slowly rebuilding, stagger back to half their former greatness. Not so Chicago! Phcenix-like, it arose from the embers of desolation. “Besurgam” was its hope, “nil desperandum” its motto. In a day a new building arose in the burnt district, in a week the debris was disappearing, in a year old scars were covered over. Financial panic and a second fire beat

vainly against its stout walls a few years later. The progressive spirit of its people could not be daunted. A new Chicago bloomed forth, grander than the old. Purified as by tire, the Garden City builded better than it knew—its foundations set upon the solid rock of business integrity and fraternal enterprise, it stands to-day the pride, the hope, the boast of the Western hemisphere. * Chicago’.* IVpu’jitfoo. In 1890, the census awarded Chicago a population of 1,101,233, since when annexations and natuial increase have probably carried the figure a quarter of a million higher. It has become the center of 76,863 miles of railroad, representing. thirty companies. It lias nearly 4i 0 miles of street, horse, electric, elevated, and cable railways, one company of which has transported 75,0(0,000 passengers in a single twelve months, and its annual general growth has an average of fully twenty per cent. Its yearly clearing-house business is over four and a half billions of dollars, its lumber receipts 2,(00,000,000 feet, grain receipts 235.000,000 bushels. Its stock yards cover over four hundred acres of ground, its school buildings number 219, its magnificent hotels are among the largest and best appointed in the world, while its ten, fourteen, eighteen and twenty story business buildings are to the new be-

holder marvelous as the pyramids of Egypt. The stranger starting out to take in the principal points ot interest in the city can do so on ai economical and satisfactory basis, if he will primarily block out his intended tour. Nearly every building or spot of importance is accessible by horse, cable, or elevated cars, and the fare is uniformly 5 cents. The parks that surround the citv like glittering emeralds in a fair crown, the cemeteries a little farther removed from the city’s bustle, the stock yards, the hospitals, the churches, the charitable and reformatory institutions, the rolling mills, and other industrial works ere all within an hour’s ride of the city’s center. After the visitor has devoted a single luxurious day to a drive along the magnificent boulevards, taking in a general idea of picturesque Chicago, he may visit individual points of interest more cheaply and at his leisure. The edifices of the business center alone are worthy of studious attention, while the water, police and fire systems, the harbor and its shipping, the public library, and the municipal, county and government buildings and institutions ure rich with a detail that will interest the eye and expand and instruct the mind of the beholder.

Good Manners. To think before you speak. To avoid joking in general society. To start new topics when the old ones become worn or personal. To talk in such a way as to amuse or entertain one’s interlocutor. To make the topic suit the time and place, avoiding sermons in ballrooms. To be generous, and to praise and admire when one can conscientiously do so. To remember that every other parent considers that his children are prodigies also: To avoid repetition in the matter of story-telling, personal reminiscences, and the like. To remember that a fool may pass for a wise man if he know enough to hold his peace. The agreeable man is he who can and will listen attentively, intelligently, and sympathetically. To remember that conversation is a fine art, from which base matter must necessarily be excluded.

CHICAGO IN 1837.

THE MASONIC TEMPLE. (Chicago’s highest building.)