How and Why Did We Reverse the Chicago River?
from The Quiet Shift: Everyday Wonders for Sleep Hosted by The Quiet Shift
In 1900, the city of Chicago did something no city had ever done: it picked up its river and turned it around. The Chicago River had been carrying the city's sewage straight into Lake Michigan — straight into its own drinking water — feeding cholera and typhoid epidemics for decades. So Chicago dug a 28-mile canal, moved 42 million cubic yards of earth, and on one freezing January morning, cut the last dam before the state of Missouri could get a court order to stop it. Tonight: the ten-mile mud portage that made Chicago exist, the city that jacked itself up on screws, the dawn raid that reversed a river, Bubbly Creek, the 1992 flood, Poopgate, and why the river runs green every St. Patrick's Day. Just long enough to fall asleep to. 🌙
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