The River and Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL
- Distance: 1.8 miles (2.9 km)
- Difficulty: Easy
- Loop
- Free
- 10 stops
A loop from the Grand Red Line station to where Chicago began: DuSable's homesite, Fort Dearborn and the bridge that bears DuSable's name, then up Michigan Avenue past the Tribune Tower and Wrigley Building to the Water Tower and Pumping Station, survivors of the Great Fire.
Stops
Grand 'L' Station
Grand is a Red Line subway station. It was rebuilt between 2007 and 2012 with wider stairs and elevators. Gather your group at street level at State and Grand. Directions to next waypoint: Walk east on Grand Ave. to Michigan Ave. and cross to the east side. Walk south to the Tribune Tower at 435 N…
Tribune Tower
In 1922 the Chicago Tribune held an international contest to design 'the most beautiful building in the world.' Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells won, and the tower was finished in 1925. Its crown is modeled on a tower of Rouen Cathedral in France. Now look at the lower walls. Close to 150 pieces…
Pioneer Court: DuSable Homesite
Somewhere near here stood Jean Baptiste Point DuSable's house, generally considered the first permanent non-native home in Chicago. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976. John Kinzie later lived in the same house. No picture of DuSable exists. The bronze bust near the river at Michigan…
DuSable Bridge
This bridge opened in 1920. It was the first double-deck, double-leaf, fixed-trunnion bascule bridge ever built. In plain words: two decks for traffic, and two halves that tip up to let ships through. Each half weighs about 4,100 tons, but it's balanced so well that a 108-horsepower motor can lift…
Fort Dearborn Site
You're standing where Fort Dearborn stood. The Army built it in 1803 as a wooden stockade on a small hill on the south bank. It was named for Henry Dearborn, the U.S. Secretary of War. In 1812 it was burned, and it was rebuilt here in 1816. By 1857 it was gone. Look down. Bronze markers in the…
McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum
This museum fills the five-story southwest bridge tower. Inside you can see the gears that raise the bridge. Look at the relief on the outside of this tower. It's called 'The Defense,' by Henry Hering, and it shows the 1812 Battle of Fort Dearborn, when soldiers and settlers leaving the fort were…
Wrigley Building
The Wrigley Building went up in 1921, with a north annex added in 1924. It's covered in more than 250,000 pieces of terra cotta in six shades of white, which is why it gleams. The clock tower is modeled on the Giralda Tower of the cathedral in Seville, Spain. There's a clock face on every side. On…
Chicago Water Tower
William W. Boyington designed this tower, and it was finished in 1869. It's built of rough cream-yellow limestone from Joliet and looks like a little castle. Inside it hid a pipe that relieved extra water pressure from the pumps across the street. In 1871 the Great Fire burned everything around it…
Chicago Avenue Pumping Station
Boyington designed this building too, from the same Joliet limestone. It pumped lake water from an intake crib two miles out, through a tunnel under the lake. During the fire, the roof here collapsed by 3:30 in the morning, and with it went any real hope of fighting the fire. The walls stood…
Grand 'L' Station (finish)
Done! You've walked from Chicago's first home to the buildings that outlasted the fire.
Created by Gregg.