A history of Chicago,
since 1837
Postcards, papers and photographs of Chicago from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi, an indigenous tribe who had succeeded the Miami, Sauk and Meskwaki peoples in this region.
The first known permanent settler in Chicago was a trader, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and he established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago".
In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in the Northwest Indian War, an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the U.S. for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Chicago’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewView of Chicago as seen at the to…, 1851: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Chicago, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as View of Chicago as seen at the top of St. Mary's College (1851) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From Wikimedia Commons (13) and the National Register (5). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.