![]() It then flows southward, paralleling the edge of Lake Michigan, through wetlands, the Greenbelt Forest Preserve and a number of golf courses towards Highland Park, Illinois. The Skokie River-or East Fork-rises from a flat area, historically a wetland, near Park City, Illinois to the west of the city of Waukegan. The source of the North Branch is in the northern suburbs of Chicago where its three principal tributaries converge. Today, the main stem of the Chicago River flows west from Lake Michigan to Wolf Point, where it converges with the North Branch to form the South Branch, which flows southwest and empties into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.Īerial view of the North Branch of the Chicago River, from the south, with Goose Island, near centerĮarly settlers named the North Branch of the Chicago River the Guarie River, or Gary's River, after a trader who may have settled the west bank of the river a short distance north of Wolf Point, at what is now Fulton Street. ![]() When it followed its natural course, the North and South Branches of the Chicago River converged at Wolf Point to form the main stem, which jogged southward from the present course of the river to avoid a baymouth bar, entering Lake Michigan at about the level of present-day Madison Street. Its three branches serve as the inspiration for the Municipal Device, a three-branched, Y-shaped symbol that is found on many buildings and other structures throughout Chicago. The river is represented on the Municipal Flag of Chicago by two horizontal blue stripes. ![]() In 1999, the system was named a "Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium" by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Completed by 1900, the project reversed the flow of the main stem and South Branch of the Chicago River by using a series of canal locks and increasing the flow from Lake Michigan into the river, causing the river to empty into the new canal instead. In 1889, the Illinois General Assembly created the Chicago Sanitary District (now the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District) to replace the Illinois and Michigan Canal with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, a much larger waterway, because the former had become inadequate to serve the city's increasing sewage and commercial navigation needs. In 1887, the Illinois General Assembly decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River through civil engineering by taking water from Lake Michigan and discharging it into the Mississippi River watershed, partly in response to concerns created by an extreme weather event in 1885 that threatened the city's water supply. The river is also noteworthy for its natural and human-engineered history. Though not especially long, the river is notable because it is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chicago Portage is a link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River Basin, and ultimately the Gulf of Mexico. The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of 156 miles (251 km) that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). Note the "Before" does not show the existing Illinois and Michigan Canal (built 1848), which generally did not affect flow direction.Ĭhicago River → South Branch → Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal → Des Plaines River → Illinois River → Mississippi River → Gulf of Mexico Map of river and flow directions, before and after re-engineering flow via the canal system. ![]()
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