Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1902 — WILL PROPHECY BE VERIFIED? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WILL PROPHECY BE VERIFIED?

Made a Century Ago, Ite Fulfillment Is Now Probable. Nearly a century ago a government engineer prophesied that at some time a great manufacturing city and Industrial

center would be built on the strip of land cut off of what is now Illinois and Indiana territory by th® Calumet river. It begins to look as if his prediction would be realized, for half a million dollars Is being expended in creating one of the finest harbors on Lake

Michigan. H. C. Frick of Pennsylvania is back of the enterprise, and experts say that within tb,e next ten years Worth township, Ind., will break aJI the world's records for growth. The story of the prophecy is told and vouched for by A. F. Knotts, formerly a representative in the Indiana Legislature and now Mayor of the city of Hammond. Some years ago Mr. £notts appeared before the river and 'narbor committee of the House of Representatives at Washington asking for an appropriation to deepen and widen Wolf river, the inlet from Lake Michigan to Wolf lake. In his speech before the committee he related an incident which he claims is a matter of history, in ferreting out which he spent many hours while in Washington. An engineer was sent to the West with Instructions to look up a site for

a fort to be located on Lake Michigan. He first visited the Calumet region, and In a voluminous report favored as a site a portion of land on Wolf river. One of the advantages mentioned in the report was that the Calumet region was really, as a matter of faet, at the head of Lake Michigan, while the Chicago river is at the west side of it. It is related, however, that the engineer afterward visited the vicinity of Chicago river and there met the daughter of a French trader. He sought her hand in marriage. The trader, however, being aware of the mission of the engineer, induced him to change his report in favor of the location of the fort on the Chicago river. Anxious to please his prospective father-in-law as well ns to bo near his affianced, he changed his report, and, as a result, Fort Dearborn was established at the mouth of the Chicago river, instead of on the Wolf, as originally recommended.

H. C. FRICK.

OLD FORT DEARBORN.