The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

and the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

. In

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, it ran from the

Chicago River The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). The river is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chic ...

in Bridgeport,

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

to the

Illinois River The Illinois River () is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River at approximately in length. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, the river has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins with the confluence of the Des Plaines ...

at LaSalle-

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. The canal crossed the Chicago Portage, and helped establish Chicago as the transportation hub of the United States, before the

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

era. It was opened in 1848. Its function was partially replaced by the wider and deeper Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933. Illinois and Michigan Canal Locks and Towpath, a collection of eight engineering structures and segments of the canal between Lockport and LaSalle-Peru, was designated a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

in 1964. and Portions of the canal have been filled in. Much of the former canal, near the

Heritage Corridor The Heritage Corridor (HC) is a Metra commuter rail line in Chicago, Illinois, and its southwestern suburbs, terminating in Joliet, Illinois. While Metra does not refer to its lines by colors, the Heritage Corridor appears on Metra timetables as ...

transit line, has been preserved as part of the Illinois and Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor.

Significance

In the 19th century, canals were an important mode of transportation. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Mississippi Basin to the Great Lakes Basin. The potential canal route influenced Illinois's north border. The

Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigability, navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, ...

and the Illinois and Michigan Canal cemented cultural and trade ties to the Northeast rather than the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

. Before the canal, agriculture in the region was limited to

subsistence farming Subsistence agriculture occurs when farmers grow crops on smallholdings to meet the needs of themselves and their families. Subsistence agriculturalists target farm output for survival and for mostly local requirements. Planting decisions occ ...

. The canal made agriculture in northern Illinois profitable by opening connections to eastern markets.

History

Conception

The first known Europeans to travel the

area Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...

, Father Marquette and Louis Joliet, went through the Chicago Portage on their return trip. Joliet remarked that with a canal they could remove the need to portage and the French could create an empire spanning the continent. The first quantitative survey of the portage was performed in 1816 by Stephen H. Long. It was on the basis of these measurements that he was able to make a specific proposal for a canal. With several slave states recently admitted to the Union, Nathaniel Pope and Ninian Edwards saw the opportunity to make

a state. They proposed moving the border northward from the southern tip of Lake Michigan to allow the canal to be within a single state. They believed that the canal would firmly align Illinois with the free states and so Congress granted them statehood even though Illinois did not meet the population requirements.

Construction

In 1824, Samuel D. Lockwood, one of the first commissioners of the canal, was given the authorization to hire contractors to survey a route for the canal to follow. Construction on the canal began in 1836, although it was stopped for several years due to an

state financial crisis related to the

Panic of 1837 The Panic of 1837 was a financial crisis in the United States that began a major depression (economics), depression which lasted until the mid-1840s. Profits, prices, and wages dropped, westward expansion was stalled, unemployment rose, and pes ...

. The Canal Commission had a grant of of federal land which it sold at to finance the construction. Still, money had to be borrowed from

Eastern United States The Eastern United States, often abbreviated as simply the East, is a macroregion of the United States located to the east of the Mississippi River. It includes 17–26 states and Washington, D.C., the national capital. As of 2011, the Eastern ...

and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

investors to finish the canal. Most of the canal work was done by Irish immigrants who previously worked on the

. The work was considered dangerous and many workers died, although no official records exist to indicate how many. The Irish immigrants who toiled to build the canal were often derided as a sub-class and were treated very poorly by other citizens of the city. The canal was finished in 1848 at a total cost of $6,170,226. Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth presided over the opening ceremony. Pumps were used to draw water to fill the canal near Chicago, which was soon supplemented by water from the Calumet Feeder Canal. The feeder was supplied by water from the Calumet River and originated in Blue Island, Il. The DuPage River provided water farther south. In 1871 the canal was deepened to speed up the current and to improve

sewage Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewerage, sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged fro ...

disposal.

Completion

The canal was eventually wide and deep, with towpaths constructed along each edge to permit mules to be harnessed to tow barges along the canal. Towns were planned out along the path of the canal spaced at intervals corresponding to the length that the mules could haul the barges. It had seventeen locks and four aqueducts to cover the height difference between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River. From 1848 to 1852 the canal was a popular passenger route, but passenger service ended in 1853 with the opening of the

Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad The original Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (CRI&P RW, sometimes called ''Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway'') was an American Class I railroad. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock. At ...

that ran parallel to the canal. The canal had its peak shipping year in 1882 and remained in use until 1933. Experiencing a remarkable recovery from the devastating Great Chicago Fire of 1871, Chicago rebuilt rapidly along the shores of the Chicago River. The river was especially important to the development of the city since all wastes from houses, farms, the stockyards, and other industries could be dumped into the river and carried out into Lake Michigan.

Decline and replacement

The lake, however, was also the source of drinking water. During a tremendous storm in 1885, the rainfall washed refuse from the river, especially from the highly polluted Bubbly Creek, far out into the lake (the city water intakes are located offshore). Although no epidemics occurred, the Chicago Sanitary District (now The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District) was created by the Illinois legislature in 1889 in response to this close call. This new agency devised a plan to construct channels and canals to reverse the flow of the rivers away from Lake Michigan and divert the contaminated water downstream where it could be diluted as it flowed into the

Des Plaines River The Des Plaines River ( ) is a river that flows southward for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 13, 2011 through southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois''American H ...

and eventually the Mississippi. In 1892, the direction of part of the Chicago River was reversed by the Army Corps of Engineers with the result that the river and much of Chicago's sewage flowed into the canal instead of into

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and depth () after Lake Superior and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the ...

. The complete reversal of the river's flow was accomplished when the Sanitary and Ship Canal was opened in 1900. It was replaced in 1933 by the Illinois Waterway, which remains in use. I and M canal near Willow Springs 2

Rejuvenation

The actual origin site of the Illinois and Michigan Canal has been converted into a nature park that integrates history, ecology and art to communicate the Canal's importance in the development of Chicago. In 2003 the Chicago Park District, in cooperation with the I & M Canal Association, hired Conservation Design Forum to develop plans to convert the brownfield site into a landscape that provided for passive recreational uses in a landscape setting with native plant species. Interpretive panels built into a wall along a bike trail were designed by local high school art students.Conservation Design Forum
/ref> The plans also called on landscape stabilization techniques to repair a significantly degraded shoreline (water levels can fluctuate as much as 5 feet). Today much of the canal is a long, thin linear park with canoeing and a hiking and biking trail (constructed on the alignment of the mule tow paths). It also includes museums and historical canal buildings. It was designated the first National Heritage Corridor by

US Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...

in 1984.

Adjacent communities

Many towns in Northern Illinois owe their existence directly to the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Lockport, Morris, Ottawa, and LaSalle were

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted by the Canal Commissioners to raise funds for the canal's construction. From east to west the towns along the path of the canal include: * Bridgeport (Chicago neighborhood) *

Summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...

* Willow Springs * Lemont * Romeoville * Lockport * Joliet * Channahon * Morris * Seneca * Marseilles *

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

* Utica * LaSalle *

Associated individuals

* Ninian Edwards * Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard * Louis Joliet *

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

* Nathaniel Pope * John T. Stuart File:P1020153 Ottawa, IL (Il n Mi canal aqueduct).JPG, Fox River Aqueduct in Ottawa, Illinois File:SR P5130009 AuSable Aqueduct.jpg, Aux Sable Creek Aqueduct, Morris, Illinois File:SR Locktender house AuSable Aqueduct.jpg, Locktenders House and lock at the Aux Sable Creek File:SR P5150084 GooseLake Prairie IL.jpg, Goose Lake Prairie F&WA, Morris, Illinois File:Lockport IL Lock Number 3.jpg, Lock #3, Lockport, Illinois File:Historic Route 66 & Route 53 in Joliet IL south of Theodore Street.jpg, Historic Route 66, Illinois Route 53, and I&M Canal overlap in

Joliet, Illinois Joliet ( ) is a city in Will County, Illinois, Will and Kendall County, Illinois, Kendall counties in the U.S. state of Illinois, located southwest of Chicago. It is the county seat of Will County, Illinois, Will County. It had a population of ...

References

External links

Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Area at U.S. National Park ServiceCanal Corridor Association

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20040603103321/http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/parks/i%26m/main.htm Illinois & Michigan Canal State Trailbr>Chicago Historical Society: Illinois & Michigan Canal
* * * * * * * * *

* ttps://mwrd.org/ Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicagobr>Ottawa Visitors CenterWill County Historical Society, housed in original Canal OfficeIllinois and Michigan Canal State Trail
{{DEFAULTSORT:Illinois And Michigan Canal Canals in Illinois Ship canals Illinois River Illinois waterways Canals opened in 1848 Canals on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Hiking trails in Illinois History of Illinois National Heritage Areas of the United States National Historic Landmarks in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Grundy County, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in LaSalle County, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Will County, Illinois Transportation in Chicago History of Joliet, Illinois Lockport, Illinois Historic American Engineering Record in Illinois 1848 establishments in Illinois Chicago Landmarks