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January 27, 2017

Strange But True!

Q. What was the famous “lift off” that transformed the face of Chicago? And not just its face but its underbelly as well.

A. The city was founded in 1833 on the coast of Lake Michigan and within the Mississippi River watershed, which helped spark its early growth, says Dan Lewis in his book “Now I Know.” Chicago went from 200 inhabitants in 1833 to 112,000 by 1860. But since the city was barely above the level of Lake Michigan, it flooded when it rained, and without a municipal sewage system, water just collected and sat and brewed diseases. “In 1854, a cholera outbreak killed as much as 6 percent of the city's population. Fixing the problem though presented another problem — how do you build sewers where the buildings already exist. The solution: raise the buildings.”


 
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