A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads That Made Chicago and Helped Make America (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780810143906)

Seven muddy miles transformed a region and a nation

This fascinating account explores the significance of the Chicago Portage, one of the most important--and neglected--sites in early US history. A seven-mile-long strip of marsh connecting the Chicago and Des Plaines Rivers, the portage was inhabited by the earliest indigenous people in the Midwest and served as a major trade route for Native American tribes. A link between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean, the Chicago Portage was a geopolitically significant resource that the French, British, and US governments jockeyed to control. Later, it became a template for some of the most significant waterways created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The portage gave Chicago its name and spurred the city's success--and is the reason why the metropolis is located in Illinois, not Wisconsin.

A History of the Chicago Portage: The Crossroads That Made Chicago and Helped Make America is the definitive story of a national landmark.

Author: Benjamin Sells
ISBN-10: 0810143909
ISBN-13: 9780810143906
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Language: English
Published: 08/15/2021
Pages: 256
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.91w x 0.71d