An advantageous location and entrepreneurial passion helped fuel Chicago’s transformation from a fur trading post to a thriving city. Louis P. Cain’s economic history places pre-1871 Chicago within the narrative of national expansion and examines infrastructure, finance, and other areas of city life. Business histories tell the story of fortunes made with essential products like meat and grain. Sketches of titans like William Ogden and Cyrus McCormick reveal how real estate, farm equipment, and other industries became engines of local growth. Cain also details public health improvements that made Lake Michigan safe as a water supply while census data informs a portrait of Chicago’s population and the lives of the free Blacks and Irish immigrants at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

Panoramic and up to date, Chicago before the Fire looks at how an intersection of geography, vision, and investment built a great American city.

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Fur Trade and Chicago
2. Pioneers and Boosters
3. Assembling Trade Routes and Establishing Position
4. How Chicago Grew
5. Those behind the Growth
6. Creating Position: Sanitation and Health
7. Population and Labor
8. The Lubricant of Growth: Money and Finance

Summary and Final Thoughts

Notes

Bibliography

Index