Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1871-11-02
BENDER & MlLLlkAN, Editors and Publish


| ing No. 1 manufacturing companies
North Chicago Rolling Mills and Stee
Works; Union Rolling Mills and Stee
| Works; The New Rolling Mills; N.
Bouton, iron founders; Eagle Machin
Works; Northwestern Manufacturing
Co.; Holmes, Pyatt 6 Co., iron found
ers: The Illinois Machine Works; Th,
c. K. I, & P. railroad shops; Pynchon &
Willard, car axle manufacturers Chicago
Forge Works. .
All of the banks are in 90. K" order
(yet they have lost their buildings), more
than so churches, 46,sO0 Buildings in al
still standing The Court House walls
are pronounced sound, (and will soon be
rebuilt), the Post Office walls will, boubt-
less be good, in part The First National
Bank ditto. Potter Palmer's Hotel,
which was under course of erection, is o.
X, and the men are at work on it. Over
thirty new five story brick, marble and
stone blocks ore now contracted, and the
debris is being removed at an astonishing
rate
Field, Letter & Co. have rented the
great brick stables of the G. c. r. W.
Company, and have to-day 200 carpenters
fitting it up for their use, and they will be
doing business there in less than thirty
days
Buildings on more than 5000 feet of
Lake street are now in process of erection.
How long is South Lake street? Consid-
erably less than 10000 feet. How long
will it be before Lake, South Water, Dear
born and Washington streets, and Wa
bash and Michigan avenues will be more
handsomely built than they were before
the fire? Less than thirty-siX months!
Oh, no, Mr.. Correspondent, that cannot
be, for they were ten years before in build
ing the city up to that grandeur which it
possessed ere the fire. | care not for that
had a good will to place the time at "a
months, , years; and / may here venture
to say that in one year from to-day there
will be 10000 more inhabitants than there
were on the 7th day of October 1871
There will be over $500 buildings erected
drring the next twelve months in the
city of Chicago, and there will be work
for thousands in the spring The Tribune
of to-day, calls for 500 men at once What
aae we going to do about this awful de-
mand for labor? l answer, 90 to work
Immediately, and with a WILL resolved to
rebuild Chicago, and the city will pro-
gresss more rapidly than was ever before
known of any city in any country. In all
modern history there is nothing more
marvellous and captivating than the
growth of the city of Chicago. Its site
had not one of the natural advantages
which men are accustomed to say deter
mine the location of great cities 1t was
miasmatic marsh, fit only for snipes and
frogs, on the shore of an inland sea. Be
hind it lay a broad and dead level cxpanse
of low and wet prairie Its river was
nothing but stagnant ditch, draining the
interior for but few miles, and having
only an Intermittent connection with the
lake, into which it nominally flowed
There was no water-power for mills and
factories, no minerals to be mined, no
earth to be moulded into commercial use,
no promise any where Of any thing by the
development of which rude hamlets grow
t. the strength and rcnown of municipali-
ties; yet, those who have seen the Won
derful transformation take placc-first,
the stockade. then the village, then the
bustling town, then the aspiring corpora
ton, then the thriving interior city, then
the trade mart of two or three states, then
the commercial metropolis of the north
west, and finally. the fourth city of the
North American Continent
Forty years since there was an even
dozen of log cabins scattered about the
marshes, giving shelter to less than a
hundred ''squatters,' drawn thither by the
proximity of a government fort In 1885
the Pottawattamies had ceded to the Uni
ted States a tract of land six miles square.
at the mouth of the Chicago river. In
1904 the United States erected thereon
Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed dur
ing the war of 1912, and rebuilt, shelter
ing, in 1882, 500 inhabitants, and the taxes
in Chicago for the year ending Dec. 31st,
1882, were $50. In 1888 the United
States expended the enormous sum of
$4,000 in dredging out the Chicago river.
What are thirty millions here to-day ?
We have companies in the city of New
York, who would lend this city that
Thirty millions at 2 per cent interest, and
Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Lon
don, and Paris, in quantities as they ask
it. In 1884 the freshet swept away the
bar at the mouth of the river, opening the
stream to the largest Lake craft. But it
must be remembered that the crafts OF
1884 were not the vessels of 1871. In 1886
the population was 4,000 In 1S49 the
first locomotive came and halted ten miles
below the city. Lake commerce had
grown beyond all calculation. The Indi-
ans were disappearing, and the arrival OF
one locomotive had revolutionized senti-
ment on the subject of railroads, as well
as the methods of managing traffic. In
1910 the population was 1853; in 1850,
29,963; in 1860, 110,973; in 1870, 299, ,227
in May, 1871, Edwards census, 334, ,27O.
The first white child born on what is now
the city of Chicago is yet fresh and vigor-
Gus, while the log huts with which he
was surrounded have long since passed
away, and the city has grown to be the
fourth in population and the second in
wealth. Exceeded only in population by
New York, Philadelphia and Brooklyn
while only the city of New York, and
perhaps Boston, exceeded her in wealth on
the 7th day of October, 1871; and l may
safely say that in five years Chicago will
be second in wealth and second in popu
lation. The city increased in population
in four months, $3.50, and in wealth ovel