south division are connected with each other and with many smaller parks and open squares by boulevards. Michigan Avenue, Jackson Boulevard and the Lake Shore Drive link the limits with the business section. Extension of Grant Park a mile into the lake, and a shore line parkway, will give Chicago one of the most beautiful waterfronts in the world.
WHAT MADE THIS GIANT CITY
Business is on the same gigantic and aspiring scale as the sky-scrapers, “City Beautiful” plans and the growth in population, which in 1910 aggregated 2,185,283. The earliest lines of trade to be developed, when the western limit of commerce was the Mississippi, were grain and lumber. With the spanning of the river by rail and the development of the wheat states of the northwest, the Chicago Board of Trade ruled the grain-market. The conquering of the Great American Desert confirmed her sovereignty. In 1912 Chicago received 35,726,000 bushels of wheat. Receipts of wheat, flour, corn, oats, rye and barley aggregated 332,008,041 bushels. The city has 68 elevator warehouses with a grain-storage capacity of 46,640,000 bushels. The prairie country's greatest need was for building material. This Chicago supplied from the forests of Michigan and Wisconsin. With the partial exhaustion of these forests Chicago reached more remote supplies. In 1912 the lumber handled in the Chicago market measured 2,642,650,000 feet. The packing industry which began in the 40's, to supply lake-vessels and lumber-camps with salted and smoked meats, received its first impetus from the Civil War, and its second and greater one from the invention of refrigerator cars by which fresh carcasses may be shipped to any part of the world. In 1912 the slaughtering and meat packing houses of Chicago turned out products amounting to over $375,000,000 and employed upwards of 27,000 men. The iron and steel industry, which has grown up since the discovery of iron ore in the Lake Superior region, amounts to $135,000,000 (including products of foundry and machine shops); printing and publishing $74,000,000; and the manufacture of clothing, which began in the outfitting of 49ers in the rush for the California gold-fields, turned $85,000,000 into Chicago's pockets in 1912.
OTHER FEATURES OF HER COMMERCIAL LIFE
The manufacture of electrical machinery alone now aggregates $20,000,000 a year. At the packing houses, the International Harvester works and the plant of the Western Electric Company visitors are welcome and the processes are explained. At the electric works the making of telephones and dynamos is especially interesting and of educational value. The average pay-roll of Chicago manufactories amounts annually to $175,000,000, and in the value of manufactured products Chicago ranks second in the list of American cities.
In the wholesale trade dry goods lead with $200,000,000, produce $160,000,000, groceries $100,000,000, boots and shoes $60,000,000 and the mail order business, which enters all lines, $90,000,000. Manufactured articles are carried chiefly by rail; raw material, such as coal, iron ore, grain and lumber, etc., as largely as possible by water in the six months' open season. In 1910, 6,551 vessels, with a tonnage of 9,470,572, cleared in Chicago's two harbors.
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND PUBLIC SERVICE
The city owns and operates its waterworks and municipal electric lighting-plants, and has a partnership interest in, and the right to purchase, its street-railway surface-lines. The surface-mileage has trebled in ten years and is now 1,364 miles. The elevated mileage has doubled to 144 miles. The form of government is typical. The departments of police, fire, health, water, etc., are under separate heads, and the schools, library and park systems are managed by boards. The old corrupt system of police-court justice has been abolished and municipal courts established. For the child delinquents and defendants there is a juvenile court in its own building, one of the first in the world. To support the city government with its 191.39 square miles of territory and its 21,000 officials and employees, Chicago had in 1911, a revenue of $52,177,591, on an actual valuation of real and personal property of $2,783,248,476.
More than half of Chicago's population is of foreign birth or parentage. With over 40 nationalities listed by the last census, the Germans lead with 416,000, Irish 215,000, Poles 109,000, Swedes 100,000, Bohemians 76,000, Norwegians 41,000, Italians 26,000.
EDUCATION AND THE ARTS
In many of the 407 school-buildings few of the pupils ever hear a word of English at home. There are 6,740 teachers and 307,281 pupils in the day-schools. In the night-schools are 25,000 more, chiefly foreigners. There are 21 high-schools, four of which are manual training, and a normal college. A down-town commercial college is to be established. The public library has 400,000 volumes for free circulation and reference, with many branch distributing stations. Of the endowed libraries, the Newberry covers history and music; the John Crerar library, science and mechanics; the Chicago Historical Society is the custodian of local history, relics and documents. The Art Institute, which has some notable collections, is free to the public three days in the week, and maintains an art-school.
A GREAT MUSICAL CENTER
In the Thomas Orchestra Hall, Chicago stands alone, among American cities, in the possession of an endowed home for orchestral music; and in the Field Columbian Museum of Natural History and Anthropology, endowed with $8,000,000 by the late Marshall Field, Chicago will
