Article February 1, 1900 Issue

Turning Chicago River Backward

After the expenditure of nearly thiry-five million dollars Chicago has turned the water of Lake Michigan into an outlet which nature provided before the glacial period. The big drainage canal is now completed. The prehistoric course of Michigan's waters toward the Mississippi will again be taken, flowing through the Des Plaines and the Illinois River valleys into the Father of Waters at a point twenty miles north of St. Louis.

For more than fifty years Chicago has been troubled with the question of pure water supply, and the disposal of its sewage. Nearly the whole of the city is drained into the Chicago River, which flows into Lake Michigan, polluting the water out to and even beyond the crib or intake.

Tunnels built under the lake at a cost of millions of dollars hold the great mains through which Chicago draws its water supply.

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