Pittsburg
Has Been Called The "Iron City," And "Smoky City"; It Has Immense Glass,
Steel And Iron Manufactures, And In These Three Interests Alone Employs
Over 50,000 Persons.
Then we proceed till, presently, we catch sight of Lake Michigan, and
know that Chicago is not far off.
We skirt the shore of this busy water,
with its wharves, etc. On arrival (December 2nd) we drive through the
city from the Pennsylvania to the North-Western terminus.
Chicago is 912 miles from New York: it is the greatest city in Illinois,
and during the past 50 years has grown from a small Indian trading
station into a metropolis. Chicago extends some 20 miles along the
shores of Lake Michigan, and goes back from the lake to a depth of about
four miles, thus embracing about 80 square miles; beyond these confines
of the city proper the suburbs extend to some 6 to 10 miles in every
direction. It will be remembered that in 1871 Chicago had a great fire,
which burned an area of 3-1/8 square miles, destroyed 17,450 buildings,
made 98,500 persons homeless, and killed outright about 200 more. The
loss of property was estimated at 190,000,000 dollars, of which only
30,000,000 dollars were recovered from insurances, and this bankrupted
some of the insurance companies. In 1874 another fire consumed 5,000,000
dollars' worth of property. Chicago is the great central depot for
grain, lumber and live stock. In 1888 there were packed at Chicago
4,500,000 hogs, and about 1,600,000 cattle.
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