Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1900 — GREAT CANAL OPENED [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT CANAL OPENED

WATER TURNED INTO CHICAGO ", DRAINAGE DITCH. ' ■’ ■' i d ->u > ~.hs ■> At a Ctost es <33,000,000, the Gulf sf Mexico and the GreafLakes AreJConuccted by a Canal Twenty-eightllf ilea I, ioK—lmmeiue Engineering Feat. Shortly after 9 o‘cio<it Tuesday moi*iiag, .water was turned Into Chicago’s great $33,009,000 drainage canal and began to flow toward Lockport, whebe It fell into the Desplaines river, and thepee through the Illinois and Mississippi rivets ri> the Gulf of Mexico. There had been so many delays and so, much talk of injunctions and opirteitioji of vUrtoufa kinds that the ossprauce that the l canal had actually been opeiMsl ’ln 'tl#; nature ®f a surprise,.gvieW fa Jkhh had kept closest .track of the great enter-1 tariy from its inception. 'While Chicago has-tdrned the couture of . a river and caused water to flow in a -direction contrary to that fHiicated by ,IfluC natural slope of the land, in reality it has bat carried into effect a suggestion of Fere Joliet made in 1674, when he wrote: “We lean easily go to‘Florida in boats and by a good, navigation. There wonld be but one canal to make, by cutting only one-half a league of prairie to pass from the lake of the Illinois into St. Louis river.” The dimensions* of the canal are larger titan those of any other channel menrwped aad it bears*the distinction of being the only ship canal designed to carry a targe volume of‘water. Primarily edn* sftgeted to divert the flow of sewage fßoni Lake Michigan through' the Dedphfines and Illinois rivers to the Missitaippi. it serves a more magnifieept purpose as a connecting link between the efaiin of lakw/aud rirerq AmJ 'ortabMsb-, ing water bet»vdeq 'the Atlantic coast ami the Gulf of Mexico. A little over seven years ago, of, to be exact, on Sept. 3, 1802, the first spadeful of earth on Chicago's great sanitary canal was turned. 'Hie work was begun oa the rock cut below Lemont on the line between Cook ami -Will cupntige.

Site - that time work hns been jgoing mi constantly. About $33,000,000 has been expended, and employment has been given to thousands, nil in order that the city of Chicago might have an adequate method of disposing of its sewage so as not to injure the health of its own citizens, or. for that matter, of anyltody. This stupendous expenditure of money, however, was much more than was necessary to create a canal for the disposal of sewage. Ln order to get a permit to build the canal the sanitary trustees were obliged to submit to the plans of rhe Government for a canal big enough not only to carry off the necessary sewage. but to form the connecting link for rhe great ship canal that will one day connect the great lakes with the gulf. Innumerable difficulties frnve been placed in the way of the construction of the .•anal. Nature interposed miles of solid reck. but the people of the Illinois and Mississippi valleys interposed objections that it proved much more troublesome to surmount. They claimed shat the sewage of Chicago would endanger the health of the inhabitants of Joliet and’ St. and other cities. The part of the canal into which the water is now Sowing begins at the south branch of the Chicago river at Robey, street, Chicago, and continues southward tn an entirely artificial channel until it’ reaches Lockport. a- distance of twentyeight miles. At Lockport the large contraHing works which will regulate the tfov. of water are situated. Between ♦’hicago and Lockport the fall is only *b&ut seven feet. In the Hext four miles the fall is about forty feet, and were it not for the dam and sluice gates at Lockport, the flow of water would be so great as to render the Chicago river too

swift far navigation. 'Hue ararter can be tamed «ff almost as easily ** the flow ft»xn a hydrant may be stopped toy turning a faaeet. Below the controlling works the channel widens out to about 5tW feet, forming a basin in which the largest lake steamers ean be easily turned The canal has been constructed in strict »«ifonditg with the requirement* of the taw render which the sanitary district of Chicago was organized, and is of Sufficient capacity to maintain a constant Star of 300.000 feejtopatguipt ~ S!.* twenty-- we fttot hi WV tfrifl tfbi Writ •odLw ttdt jtrwhltjt,/. Prom>-. easily carry off the sewa"ge of the city I

BEAR TRAP DAM. LOCKPORT.

COMPLETED CHANNEL IN JOLIET.