Part 14 (2/2)
”Town lots, town lots!” shouted the audience in amiable sarcasm, not wis.h.i.+ng the visiting statesman to depart with the suspicion that dreams of real-estate speculation had destroyed the sanity of the whole community.
For three years the town had been the centre of a great land craze, one of the first real-estate booms that have played so important a part in the location and development of Western cities. Dr. Horace Chase, writing in 1883 from Milwaukee, says:
”Soon after the sale of lots in Chicago, in 1833, I think, Robert Kinzie, on his way to Detroit, stopped at Marsh's trading post near Coldwater. There happened to be several of us present and Bob began to boast about Chicago and what a great city it would become. 'Why,'
said he, 'I bought some of the best lots in Chicago for twenty dollars apiece, and those lots are worth sixty dollars apiece to-day!' It seemed to us utterly absurd that a lot should be worth sixty dollars, when two hundred dollars would buy one hundred and sixty acres of the best quality. Not a single person in the crowd believed Bob's yarn.”
[Ill.u.s.tration THE ART INSt.i.tUTE, CHICAGO.]
As an example of the spirit which animated these old pioneers who came in the early days to the great city that was to be, the story of one man furnishes an interesting ill.u.s.tration. The writer had it from the lips of the man himself, who recently died at the ripe age of eighty-two.
”I had heard of the West,” he said, ”in the little hamlet in New England where I was born. My ambition was fired, and I determined at all hazards to seek my fortune there. I soon found myself in Buffalo with seven dollars in my pocket, and with this I had to pay my transportation to the young city in the West. After considerable 'higgling' with the captain of a schooner I arranged for deck pa.s.sage at a cost of three dollars. Part of my money was then expended to get some cotton cloth. This I sewed up in the shape of a bag, and into it I put some shavings to soften the hard planks of the deck of the s.h.i.+p at night. The balance of the money went for boiled ham, cheese, and bread.
”I was twenty years old, had been a farm boy, and had attained no special knowledge of any manual trade.
I arrived in Chicago and found it a dismal, swampy place, but with every appearance of thrift and activity. My money was exhausted, and work was indispensable. Going along the one important street or road I found a man building a rather pretentious boarding house. He asked me if I 'came off that s.h.i.+p in the harbor,' and when I answered 'yes,' he inquired whether there were any carpenters on board. I told him there was none excepting myself. He wanted to know if I could 'lay out work' so that his men could saw and hammer, which was all they could do. It seemed to me that I could 'lay out work'
better than anything else, and engaged myself to him at four dollars a day. Two days satisfied my new boss that my technical knowledge was deficient, and he paid me off. I soon afterwards found work in a harness shop, and by a.s.siduity and attention I acquired a knowledge of that business. Thus I got my start.”
This man lived continuously in Chicago for more than sixty years. By early and judicious investments in real estate he acquired wealth. He bought a lot, now centrally located, for $400, and sold a part of it thirty years later for $62,500. He sold it too soon, however, for that same corner will bring at the present time not less than $500,000. At his death he left an estate valued at between $5,000,000 and $6,000,000.
Fortunes were made over night. In 1835 the Federal Government opened a land office, and this intensified the excitement. Boundless acres of outlying farmland changed hands in Chicago. Towns and cities that had no existence save on the blue prints of imaginative and wily promoters were plotted, and their mythical blocks sold to hasty and credulous investors. But the panic of 1837 brought both legitimate and illicit real-estate traffic to a close with a crash. The dishonest and the defrauded went down in a common ruin.
By 1838 the sheriff was the only real-estate agent who could dispose of property, and at these forced sales the returns were meager. Panic paralyzing business, a mysterious disease like Asiatic cholera stopping progress on the ca.n.a.l, and a drought destroying crops, impoveris.h.i.+ng streams, and spreading devastating fever in the city, was the calamitous record of 1838.
Chicago as a city began with $1993 in its treasury. The need for munic.i.p.al improvement was imperative. Where to get money for sanitary drainage, for the paving of a few streets, and the purchase of two fire engines, was a problem. The Common Council appointed a finance committee with power to act.
[Ill.u.s.tration STATUE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN BY ST. GAUDENS.]
Peter Bolles was made chairman. It was finally decided to borrow $25,000 from the State Bank of Illinois, pledging the city to redeem the obligation in five years. In due time the committee submitted as its report the following letter:
”STATE BANK OF ILLINOIS,
”SPRINGFIELD, May 31, 1837.
”PETER BOLLES, ESQ.,
”_Dear Sir_:
”Your letter of the 18th, addressed to the president of this bank and proposing on behalf of the city of Chicago a loan from this bank of the sum of $25,000, has been laid before the directors of the bank, and, I regret to have to state, declined.
”I am very respectfully,
”Your o'bt serv't,
”N.H. RIDGELY, Cas.h.i.+er.”
In 1900 the city which sixty-three years before could not borrow $25,000, could boast of bank clearances amounting to $6,795,876,000.
The poverty and disasters of early days seemed only to nerve the city to renewed determination and prepare her to meet with stoic faith the appalling calamities of later years. In this resume it is only possible to catalogue the misfortunes that visited her. Floods swept away her s.h.i.+pping, fire destroyed her acc.u.mulating industries, raging epidemics reduced her population--cholera alone in 1854 causing 1424 deaths--and financial panic again and again returned to manacle activities. Many times in Chicago's history citizens could well exclaim: ”One woe upon another's heels doth tread, so fast they follow!”
Unconquerable in the presence of these recurrent visitations, the city pressed forward to her place as the metropolis of the Mississippi empire.
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