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The Chicago River is more than a conduit for tourists and green dye. It's an unnatural wonder. We killed it with sewage and made it bubble with decomposing pig offal. We dug it out, encased it in concrete, and reversed its flow, connecting America's two mighty water systems, the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. The Chicago River Blog will tell the story of the river that defines our city.

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"We were wont to curse the sinless streamlet"

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District stands up for the river, at Kinzie Street this morning
The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District stands up for the river, at Kinzie Street this morning.

"That little stream, whose crystal waters had never been parted by anything heavier than a canoe, now buoyed the massive barks of traffic, and became polluted with the sewage of a growing city. And thus the great transition came, and we were wont to curse the sinless streamlet for it. To think that poor, innocent, abused, baby stream should for so many years have had anathemas heaped upon it by every one, without a friend to stand up for it, is too bad, too bad."

Edwin O. Gale, 1902, Reminiscences of Early Chicago and Vicinity

Brian Boyer
Brian Boyer is a software developer, drawn into the wild world of writing by a strange set of circumstances. This was never the plan. More

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About this blog

The Chicago River is more than a conduit for tourists and green dye. It's an unnatural wonder. We killed it with sewage and made it bubble with decomposing pig offal. We dug it out, encased it in concrete, and reversed its flow, connecting America's two mighty water systems, the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. The Chicago River Blog will tell the story of the river that defines our city.

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