Chicago History for Kids: Triumphs and Tragedies of the Windy City Includes 21 Activities
A city of three million residents grew up around the once deserted Chicago River PHOTO BY TERRY EVANS REVEALING CHICAGO Ever since Chicagoans have stopped at little to overcome nature's inconveniences Unfortunately progress has also had tragic consequences for the native peoples of this region who lost their access to the land and with it their way of life Modern life has also had damaging effects on the local wildlife and environment Still Chicagoans are proud of the can do attitude that helps them build some of the world's tallest sky scrapers operate one of the world's busiest airports and run the third largest city in the United States For better or worse Chicago is always growing changing building and inventing In the following pages you can explore the city’s streets and relive Chicago's most spectacular events Imagine being the first explorer to set foot in Chica go See what it was like to dodge the flames of the Great Chicago Fire Take a ride on the world's first Ferris wheel Along the way you can build a replica of Fort Dearborn take walking tours of historic Chicago neighborhoods and write a blues
Chicago Before Chicagoans NH HE HISTORY OF CHICAGO goes back much further than the Chicago Fire Chicago's JL World's Fairs or the days of Al Capone Many history books of Chicago start with the year 1673 when the first Europeans entered the area This isn't one of those books That s because the his tory of Chicago doesn't begin with the arrival of the European explorers and settlers It didn't begin in 1492 either when Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of the New World By that time the Amer ican continents were already populated by millions of native peoples who had lived here for at least 9 000 years probably much longer The earliest migrants may have even arrived as far back as 20 000 or even 30 000 years ago Time Line 3 million Ice Age begins years ago 100 000 Ice sheet covers Chicago years ago 20 000 Chicago area glaciers begin to melt and years ago recede humans inhabit North America Lake Chicago covers much of the future city 11 500 Clovis people hunt mastodons with spears years ago 10 000 Mastodons and other North American years ago megafauna die out
8 400 years Archaic Indians construct dugout canoes ago 2 600 years Native Americans make pottery ago A D 400 Bow and arrow developed A D 700 Large scale farming begins A D 1050 Mississippian Indians reach their peak at 1200 Cahokia A D 1400 End of significant Cahokian society An artist's conception of what the Chicago area might have looked like 16 000 years ago PAINTING BY ROBERT G LARSON COURTESY OF THE ILLINOIS STATE MUSEUM But the history of Chicago doesn't begin 30 000 years ago either To understand the city that we know today you have to look back even further in time more than one billion years to explore the area's ecology then progress to its human history starting with the technological social and cultural riches of Native American societies A BRIEF HISTORY OF A LONG TIME For anyone who wants to know about Chicago and how it came to be the great city it is today it helps to know a few things about the environment of Chicago and its surrounding area Why is Illinois so flat What makes it such good farmland What created those slopes and ridges in the Chicago area Where did Lake Michigan come from Did you know that the land that is now Illinois miles upon miles of flat corn and soybean fields was once made up of violent spewing volcanoes That was 1 5 billion years ago before the American conti
