What he could not foresee was that Lake Michigan would make the Chicago of
to-day not so much by giving it a waterway to the markets of the east and
Europe as by standing as an obstacle in the way of a straight path to the
sea from the northwest fields and so compelling those fertile lands to
send all their riches around the southern end of Lake Michigan. He
overestimated the economic importance, to be sure, of the buffalo. But if
domesticated cattle be substituted for the wild species, he again showed
remarkable prevision of the future of a city which has enjoyed a world
fame by reason of its cattle-market--its stock-yards. [Footnote: Of the
importance of the lakes-to-the-gulf waterway we have already spoken.]
Chicago is a city without a past, save for that glow of adventure which is
almost as hazy as the myths or legends that lie back of Europe. It is just
eighty-one years since it came into existence as a town, [Footnote: August
12, 1833.] and but twenty-eight voters voted for the first board of
trustees of the town; its population was variously estimated at from above
two hundred to three hundred and fifty.
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