THAT BUILT CHICAGO

topic read the book “La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West” by Francis Parkman.

“It was [La Salle’s] dream to dominate trade from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf Mexico,” Piano said. “The canal was La Salle’s idea … and its earliest beginning.”

By 1933, the canal was already outdated because people had learned to use lock and dam technology, said Larry Bird, a local historian who lives in Peru. In 1933, the Illinois Waterway linked the Chicago River, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, and the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers.

Bird said history is a “progression of ‘We’ve got to do it faster. We’ve got to do it bigger.’” Instead of small wooden boats on the canal, people started to use large barges to transport goods.

Passengers also started using railroads, vehicles and reliable roads instead of canal travel.

Visible History

Even though the Illinois & Michigan Canal was decommissioned in 1933, the I&M Canal State Trail offers the opportunity to see many of the canal’s structures that still stand.

n Left: The M.J. Hogan grain elevator, also known as Armour’s Warehouse, on Williams Street in Seneca circa 1912.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER ILL,50-SEN,2--3 n Middle: A view of Lock 14 in La Salle, facing east.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER ILL, 50-LASAL, 3--6 n Right: A view of the former locktender’s house, facing east along the Illinois & Michigan Canal near Lock 8 east of Morris.

Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HAER ILL, 32-MOR. V, 2--2