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A barge passes through downtown Chicago along the South Branch of the Chicago River in 1911. This is one of nearly 22,000 recently found photographs taken by the Sanitary District of Chicago. -
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These photos form a panorama of the Illinois River as seen from Buffalo Rock, near Ottawa. In the background is Delbridge Island, which was submerged in the 1930s after the completion of Starved Rock Lock and Dam, which helped create a navigable waterway for large ships. -
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Workers building the State Street Bridge over the Chicago River construct a wooden cofferdam to create a water-free work area. The barriers often leaked. This 1902 view is from the south bank of the river looking northeast. The Rush Street Bridge is in the background. -
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The Randolph Street Bridge was built across the South Branch in 1903. (It was replaced in 1984.) The Sanitary District removed center-pier swing bridges, which impeded the river, and replaced them with long drawbridges so that the water could flow unobstructed. -
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The infamous Stockyard Slip, an open sewer along 39th Street (now Pershing Road), connected the Union Stockyards to the South Fork of the South Branch. The smell from the stockyards and the slip persuaded many people of means to move as far north as possible. Wrote Upton Sinclair in The Jungle: “[M]any times an unwary stranger has started to stroll across, and vanished temporarily.” -
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Sanitary District engineers take a bucket ride as they celebrate work in Chicago in 1899. -
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A boat is unearthed in 1905 near the Western Avenue Bridge on the West Fork of the Chicago River’s South Branch. The West Fork no longer exists on the Southwest Side; it was filled in because it was seldom used. -
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River traffic heads down the South Branch. This view is from the 12th Street Bridge looking south. The building on the east bank is the Rock Island Railroad grain elevator, torn down in the 1920s when the stretch of river from Polk to 18th Streets was straightened. -
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Workers repair a flood-damaged dam near Dresden Heights on the Des Plaines River southwest of Joliet in 1908. During the 1890s, a 13-mile section of the Des Plaines River was rerouted as part of the project to reverse the Chicago River. -
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