16. The Sanitary and Ship Canal
Opened in 1900, the Sanitary and Ship Canal was a project which included reversing the direction of the flow of the Chicago River. By the late 1870s, community leaders recognized the level of pollution of the Chicago River, which received much of the industrial and human waste generated by the city. One tributary became known as Bubbly Creek, its waters bubbling from the breakdown of the wastes it contained. It continued to bubble throughout the 20th century. In the 1870s, periods of heavy rain drove polluted water from the river and its creeks into Lake Michigan, from which the city drew its drinking water. In 1889 Chicago created the Municipal Sanitary district and committed to reversing the flow of the Chicago River.
The Canal dug to alter the river’s course ran parallel to the existing Illinois and Michigan Canal to Lockport. By 1900, when the canal was officially opened (by Admiral George Dewey) it did not yet connect to the Des Plaines River, linking Chicago with the Gulf of Mexico via water. It terminated at Lockport. It did not reach the Des Plaines until 1907. Once completed, water flowed from Lake Michigan into the Chicago River, the canal and eventually into the Mississippi River Watershed. The locks and dams of the system restricted the flow of water to levels established by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The canal today bears frequently encountered signs describing the water within as unfit for human contact.