Railroads Effect Chicago

The nation network of railroads laid from 1848 through the Civil War, and the steam powered locomotives that traversed them, supplied Chicago with vast new markets, resources, and people who quickly transformed it from a quiet Frontier village into a highly populated industrial powerhouse. The Chicago of 1830 was hardly a city at all. Fort Dearborn located near the fork of what is now the Chicago River was bogged down with mud and tormented by disease and Indian wars. By the 1833 when the city was incorporated, a warehouse, dry good's store, and hotel had all been built. William B. Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago was also the first to attempt to give Chicago a railroad. He chartered the Galena and Chicago Railroad in 1836, but it collapsed with the economic disaster of 1837 (Berger 3). Ogden tried again in 1846, and on October 22, 1848 Chicago's first locomotive, "Pioneer", was loaded onto the tracks (Casey, Douglas 59). In retrospect, "Pioneer" turned out to be a fitting name for the city's first train, because by 1866 there were more than forty railroads serving Chicago and the city's population had skyrocketed to just under 300,000. There were many problems that needed to be resolved starting in the 1830s, before a railroad could become a versatile enough to be a cost effective carrier of freight and people. The nation's original tracks had been built mainly of wood, although cheaper than iron, it was quickly decided that iron's durability was well worth the extra cost. Another development was the placement of ballas, or pebbles, that covered the bottom of the tracks and added weight and stability along with drainage to the tracks. Also, the trains were known to collide head on into grazing animals. The problem lay in how to keep the animal from being pulled under the train and causing it to derail. This answer came with the placement of a hood plate on the front of the locomotive so that whatever hit the train would be pushed harmlessly in front of it and could later be cleared without endangering the train. Other major safety issues found solutions with the utilization of lights and horns (Gordon 27-33). By 1848, when Chicago was ready to start building railroads, the technology had already been developed enough to conduct real business.

Charters for railroads leading to Chicago soon began to pour in. After the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad was completed shortly after 1853, it merged with the Chicago and Northwestern Railway which began its long march to Greenbay WI. Soon came the Illinois Central, the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific, and the Chicago Burlington and Quincy. Many more came and connected Chicago to nearly every part of the US (Gordon 151). If one looked at a map of all the major trunk lines that stretched over the United States, he would see "a wheel with Chicago as the hub" (Berger 22). The busy development of all these new railroads furnished the developing Chicago with huge markets, to both the east and the west. Chicago's destiny as center of industry was set, but it would still take some time for Chicago to take advantage of its potential.

The first of the markets was the ever-expanding frontier with its agricultural surplus that lay to the west and north of Chicago. In the frontier, a town's distance from a railroad determined what its cost for trade and travel would be. To minimize these costs, new cities and farms popped up very close to the railroads (Martin 81). Train loads of New Englanders came to these new villages in search of the free homesteads that they saw in newspaper advertisements and pamphlets back home. These men and women became the farmers who ended up producing surplus crops which they desired to sell (Gordon 35). According to Mayer, as they looked for their most profitable course of action, their goal was a destination with the most choices of routes, the highest competition, and therefore the lowest rates (Growth 122). With connections to many of the nation's railways, Chicago marked the spot to the farmers of the West. Chicago was the perfect outlet to sell their heavy and relatively inexpensive crops. The railroads in Chicago had laid the foundation for its success limited only to the ingenuity of the capitalistic market. To the east lay Chicago's second market, New England. By the 1850s, this region was industrialized and was producing vast quantities of manufactured goods. Facing much the same dilemma as the West, New England realized that Chicago was a perfect spot to export its goods. A majority of these "manufactured goods" was "through" traffic for Chicago and after a short layover was loaded onto other trains to continue on west (Casey, Douglas 122). These manufactured goods included building materials, industrial tools, and hardware. Liking what they saw, the frontier farmers became increasingly enticed to send their wheat, hay, cement, lumber and wool to Chicago in exchange for money they spent purchasing goods from back east. So began a cycle of trade between the East and West on railroads that all went via Chicago.

Partially because of its central geographic location, but mainly because it had so many railroads blossoming from it, Chicago became the middle man between the East and the West, ensuring its future economic success. Chicago provided markets where western settlers could buy Eastern manufactured goods and sell farm produce, lumber, and other Western products. By 1968, McCormick, a Chicago based firm was producing over 10,000 soil-breaking implements annually (Mayer, Growth 46). But manufacturing finished products was not the most logical calling for the city that received ever-rising quantities of unfinished goods by rail. In the mid 1850s, Chicago's industrial sector found the city's niche in increasing the value of the products that it imported before sending them out to market.

Starting in the 1850s, new industries took hold as Chicago began to harness the vast quantities of raw resources obtainable by the trainload and increase the value per pound to make a profit as it is sent off on another railroad. According to Mayer, the needs of these companies and not the plans of the city determined the pattern of railroad development (Growth 44). The railroads had brought the resources that finally ignited into the industries of Chicago. This industrialization caused explosive growth in the building industry. From the first census of 1837 the number of buildings had grown from under 500 to around 60,000 (Badger 4). As fast as industries could develop, railroads were laid with door to door service, carrying with them the raw materials and shipping out the end products. Nineteenth century Chicagoans were very supportive of industrial development in Chicago. They viewed the smoke and pollution outside as a signs of progress. In