Part 143

Boston was settled in 1630 by a party of Puritans from Salem. A memorable massacre occurred here in 1770, and in 1773 several cargoes of English tea were thrown overboard in the harbor by citizens. The battle of Bunker Hill was fought on Breed’s Hill, within the present city limits, June 17, 1775. The city charter was granted in 1822.

=Cambridge= (_kām´brĭj_), =Mass.= [So named for the English university town of that name. The English name is supposed to mean “the bridge over the river Cam,” the real name of which is the Granta.]

It is virtually a suburb of Boston, from which it is separated by the Charles River, and with which it is connected by several bridges. The city comprises Old Cambridge, the seat of Harvard University, North Cambridge, East Cambridge, Cambridgeport, and Mount Auburn. The streets are broad and shaded with elms, and there are many places of historical and literary interest, among these the Craigie House and “Elmwood,” the homes of Longfellow and Lowell, respectively; and Mount Auburn Cemetery, containing the graves of Longfellow, Lowell, Prescott, Motley, Agassiz, Holmes, and other noted men.

The chief interest of Cambridge, however, lies in its educational institutions, which include Harvard University, Radcliffe College (for women), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Episcopal Theological School, and Andover Theological Seminary. All these institutions are now in close working alliance with Harvard University.

Harvard University, founded in 1636, is not only the oldest but the richest of American universities, and the roster of graduates contains more than twenty thousand names. Massachusetts Hall is the oldest of the present buildings, being built in 1720. The most notable buildings architecturally (besides the fine Medical School group in Boston) are: Austin Hall and Longdell Hall, devoted to the Law School; Widener Memorial Library, a splendid new building dominating the college yard; Busch Hall, devoted to the art collections of the Germanic Museum; Memorial Hall, containing Sanders Theater; and Sever Hall, containing class-rooms.

The activities of the university require upward of sixty other buildings, including laboratories, lecture halls, museums, residence halls, and a number of fine structures devoted to the social, religious, athletic and art life of the student body.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founded in 1861, is located on the Charles River Parkway, and occupies a newly acquired area of about seventy acres. Here has been erected a magnificent group of buildings, unrivaled, perhaps, in design, adaptation for their respective uses, and general equipment. This institution is devoted to the teaching of science as applied to the various engineering professions--civil, mechanical, mining, electrical, chemical, and sanitary engineering--as well as to architecture, chemistry, metallurgy, physics, and geology.

Among the industrial establishments are foundries, machine shops, and extensive manufactories. The Riverside, Athenæum, and University Presses are well-known printing establishments, and the “Bay Psalm Book,” the first book printed in America, was published in Cambridge in 1640.

Cambridge was settled in 1630 by Governor Winthrop under the name of Newtowne. In 1636 Harvard College was founded at Newtowne, and in 1638 Newtowne became Cambridge. The Washington elm, under which Washington received command of the American troops, is still standing.

=Chicago= (_shĭ-kä´gō_), =Ill.= [The “Windy City”], probably received its name from the Indian _Checagua_, meaning “wild onion” and “pole-cat.”

It is the second city and largest railway center of the United States, and is situated on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan, at the mouths of the rivers Chicago and Calumet, five hundred and ninety feet above sea level and fifteen to seventy-five feet above the lake. It is eight hundred and fifty miles from Baltimore, the nearest Atlantic port, and two thousand four hundred and fifteen miles from San Francisco.

Chicago is noted for the magnitude of its commercial enterprises; for the greatness of its financial institutions; for the excellence of its parks and public playgrounds--particularly in the number, equipment, and splendid use of its small parks in congested localities; for its universities, its efficient public-school system, and for other educational, artistic, and morally uplifting institutions that give to it an enlightened, a cultured, and a progressive citizenship.

It is estimated that not more than 350,000 of the inhabitants are of native American parentage; about 550,000 are Germans, 250,000 are Irish, 225,000 Scandinavians, 160,000 Poles, 110,000 Bohemians, 40,000 Italians, 60,000 Canadians, and 100,000 English and Scottish. There are some fourteen languages, besides English, each of which is spoken by ten thousand or more persons.

The city has a water-front on the lake of twenty-six miles and is divided by the Chicago River and its branches into three portions, known as the North, South, and West Sides, to which must be added the “Loop,” or business part of the city. The site of the city is remarkably level, rising very slightly from the lake; and its streets are usually wide and straight. Among the chief business-thoroughfares are State, Clark, Madison, Randolph, Dearborn, and La Salle Streets, and Wabash Avenue. Perhaps the finest residence streets are Prairie and Michigan Avenues and Drexel and Grand Boulevards, on the South Side, and Lake Shore Drive, on the North Side.

A splendid bird’s-eye view of Chicago is obtained by ascending to the top of the tower of the Auditorium on Congress Street and Michigan Boulevard. This huge building, erected in 1887-1889 at a cost of three million five hundred thousand dollars, includes a large hotel and a handsome theater. The Fine Arts or Studebaker Building, adjoining the Auditorium, on Michigan Boulevard, is one of the show buildings of Chicago, and has deservedly been described as the focus of the artistic and intellectual life of Chicago, containing as it does a theater, concert, assembly, and lecture rooms, studios of leading artists, and the meeting-places of several clubs. The beautiful Romanesque building to the north of the Fine Arts Building is the Chicago Club. A little farther to the north, at the corner of Jackson Boulevard, is the tall Railway Exchange Building, erected in 1903-1904, and cased in tiles. Next to this on the north is the new building of the Chicago Orchestra Association, on the roof of which is the house of the “Cliff Dwellers,” a literary and artistic club. A little to the south of the Auditorium, at the corner of Harrison Street, is the Harvester Building, erected in 1907, beyond which is the palatial Blackstone Hotel. A little farther to the south is the Illinois Central Station.

Following Michigan Avenue toward the north from the Auditorium, we reach the Art Institute of Chicago, an imposing building in a semi-classical style, containing a valuable collection of paintings, sculptures, and other objects of art. Opposite is the magnificent People’s Gas Building, erected at a cost of eight million dollars.

Farther to the north, on the opposite side of Michigan Avenue, are the buildings of the Illinois Athletic Club, the University Club, and the Chicago Athletic Club. At the corner of Madison Street is the Montgomery Ward Building, with its tower, and a little farther up, at the corner of Washington Street, is the Chicago Public Library, an imposing building in a classical style, erected in 1893-1897, at a cost of two million dollars.

This fine edifice is worthy to rank with the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library. The main entrances are to the north and south, in Randolph Street and Washington Street. The interior is sumptuously adorned with marble, mosaics, frescoes and mottoes. It contains three hundred and fifty thousand volumes. On the first floor is a large Memorial Hall, used by the Grand Army of the Republic and covered by a dome; it contains an interesting collection of Civil War and other historical relics.

On the north, Michigan Avenue ends at the Chicago River. Fort Dearborn stood to the left, on the river, at the end of the avenue.

The business quarters of Chicago occupy chiefly the great central district called the “Loop,” which is bounded by the lines of the Elevated Railway. We may follow Randolph Street to the west to the City Hall and County Building, two large adjoining buildings, in a modern classical style with huge Corinthian columns, built at a cost of five million dollars.

La Salle Street, leading to the south from the County Building, contains some of the finest office buildings in the city. Among these are the Chamber of Commerce at the corner of Washington Street; the Tacoma Building at the corner of Madison Street; the Y. M. C. A. Building, a little farther to the south; the New York Life Insurance Building; the low but impressive Northern Trust Co. Building, and the oddly shaped Women’s Temperance Temple, all three at the corners of Monroe Street; the new granite building of the Corn Exchange National Bank, the Home Insurance Co. Building, and the Rookery, with a very attractive interior lined with white marble. Farther on in La Salle Street, at the corner of Jackson Boulevard, is the Illinois Trust & Savings Bank, a massive two-storied edifice, with a fine central court. At the end of La Salle Street stands the granite building of the Board of Trade.

Jackson Boulevard leads hence to the east to the Federal Building, containing the Post Office and Custom House and occupying an entire city square. It is in the Corinthian style, with a large central dome two hundred feet in height.

Other notable buildings within the “Loop” district include: the Continental and Commercial Bank, Hotel La Salle, First National Bank, and the great department store, office, newspaper, and hotel buildings.

The park system of Chicago is without a parallel in America; it embraces Lincoln Park, on the lake shore to the north, and six others, and is divided into three sections, all connected or nearly so by magnificent boulevards, which, with the park drives, measure over sixty miles. In all, Chicago has ninety-three parks, covering more than four thousand four hundred acres. A characteristic feature of the system is the large number of small “People’s Parks” scattered through the poorer districts and provided with baths, gymnasiums and playgrounds. On the north side is Lincoln Park, reached via Lake Shore Drive, one of the finest residence streets in Chicago, containing some very handsome houses. This passes near the Water Works, at the foot of Chicago Avenue, and ends on the north at Lincoln Park, which is at present three hundred acres in area, but is being extended by filling in the adjacent shallows of Lake Michigan.

Among the attractions of this park are the conservatories, palm-house, lily-ponds, and flower-beds; a small zoological collection; a fountain illuminated at night by electric light; the statues of Lincoln (by Saint-Gaudens), Grant (by Rebisso), Beethoven, Schiller, La Salle, a Mounted Indian, and Linnaeus; and the boating lake. Near the main entrance is the Academy of Sciences, containing admirably arranged and classified collections illustrating the various natural sciences.

Grant Park, consisting of a public pleasure ground of two hundred and ten acres, lies between Michigan Boulevard and Lake Michigan. This park has been improved of late by the depression of the tracks of the Illinois Central Railway and by the construction of massive stone viaducts connecting the park proper with the lake shore. The adjoining part of the lake, between the shore and the breakwater, has been filled in and added to the park. In Grant Park, to the south of the Auditorium and opposite Eldredge Place, is an equestrian statute of General John A. Logan, in bronze, by Saint-Gaudens.

The South Side parks are also fine. They are best reached by Michigan Avenue and Drexel Boulevards, two fine residence streets with tasteful houses and ornamental gardens. Michigan Avenue also contains several churches, the Calumet Club, numerous large hotels and apartment houses, and the First Regiment Armory. In Drexel Boulevard is the handsome Drexel Memorial Fountain.

Washington Park (three hundred and seventy-one acres) and Jackson Park (five hundred and twenty-three acres) are connected by a wide boulevard known as the Midway Plaisance, on which is located the University of Chicago.

The West Side parks, Douglas Park, Garfield Park, and Humboldt Park are little inferior to those of the North and South Sides.

The University of Chicago, between Fifty-sixth and Fifty-ninth Streets, occupies probably the finest group of buildings, architecturally, devoted to higher education in the United States. The total value of buildings and equipment is more than thirty million dollars, one-fourth of which was contributed by citizens of Chicago and the balance by John D. Rockefeller. The ground has an area of sixty-six acres, and the university includes faculties of Arts, Literature, Science, Commerce and Administration, Education, Medicine, Law, and Divinity.

Above thirty different buildings have already been erected, mainly of limestone and in a Gothic style, from the designs of H. I. Cobb and Mr. Coolidge. Perhaps the most successful group is that at the corner of Fifty-seventh Street and Lexington Avenue, including an Assembly Hall, a Students’ Club House, the University Tower, and the University Commons. Other important buildings are the Cobb Lecture Hall, the Kent Chemical Laboratory, the Ryerson Physical Laboratory, the Law School, the Anatomy, Physiology, Zoology, and Botany Buildings, the Walker Museum, the Haskell Oriental Museum, the handsome Bartlett Gymnasium, dormitories for women and dormitories for men. On the south edge of the campus stands the main structure of the Harper Memorial Library, an enormous Gothic building by Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, erected in memory of President Wm. R. Harper. The Yerkes Observatory, at Williams Bay on Lake Geneva, containing one of the largest refracting telescopes in the world, belongs to the University of Chicago. Connected with the University is the large School of Education, facing the Midway Plaisance, between Monroe and Kimbark Avenues.

Other notable educational institutions include the Lewis Institute, founded and endowed by the late Mr. A. A. Lewis and opened in 1896, comprising a School of Arts and a School of Engineering, tuition in which is furnished at a nominal cost; and the Armour Institute, a well equipped institution for higher technical education, endowed by its founder with three million dollars.

Hull House, at the southwest corner of Polk and South Halsted Streets, is a social settlement of men and women, furnishing a social, intellectual, and charitable center for the surrounding district. It includes a free kindergarten, a coffee-house, a residential boys’ club, a theater, a labor-museum, and a free gymnasium, while classes, lectures, and concerts of various kinds are held.

The famous Union Stockyards (“Packingtown”) are in South Halsted Street, five and one-half miles to the southwest of the City Hall, and may be reached by the South Halsted Street or Racine Avenue trolley-lines, both running directly to the main entrance at Forty-first Street. The yards proper cover an area of about five hundred acres, have twenty-five miles of feeding-troughs, and twenty miles of water-troughs, and can accommodate seventy-five thousand cattle, three hundred thousand hogs, fifty thousand sheep, and five thousand horses. From two-thirds to three-fourths of the cattle and hogs are killed in the yards, and sent out in the form of meat. About thirty thousand workers are employed by the packing-houses. Chicago is the greatest live stock and grain market in the world.

Among the more important general manufactures of the city may be mentioned those of railway cars, locomotives, agricultural implements, mining appliances, clothing, electrical apparatus, lumber products, furniture, pianos, organs, leather, cigars, chemicals, beer, spirits, and flour. The steel and iron industry is conducted on a large scale, and the city has some large rolling mills. Chicago is also one of the leading publishing centers of the United States, and is an active jobbing center for the book trade.

As a center of railroad industry Chicago takes precedence over all cities of the world. Twenty-six of the principal trunk-line railroads of the United States run trains into Chicago terminals, and in addition to these there are numerous belt transfer, terminal and industrial lines which have either a part or all of their trackage in the city. Within the corporate limits of the city are eight hundred miles of main line railway and one thousand four hundred miles of auxiliary track. The total mileage of the twenty-six roads entering Chicago approximates ninety-seven thousand miles, or about forty-two per cent of the total mileage of the United States. The land occupied by main line property within Chicago represents nine thousand six hundred acres, or eight per cent of the entire area of the city.

There are six principal passenger terminals in Chicago, located as follows:

Baltimore & Ohio Terminal (Grand Central Station), at Fifth Avenue and Harrison Street. Central Station, at Michigan Avenue and Twelfth Street. Chicago & North Western Passenger Terminal, at North Clinton, West Madison, and North Canal Streets. La Salle Street Station, with entrance on Van Buren Street. Dearborn Station, at Dearborn and Polk Streets. Union Passenger Station, at Adams and Canal Streets.

Present plans are under way, however, to concentrate all roads entering Chicago in three great union stations--the North Western Station (already built, at a cost of $25,000,000), the Illinois Central Station, and the Pennsylvania Station, the two latter involving an expenditure of one hundred and fifty million dollars.

The water carrying trade of Chicago is comparable to that of New York and Boston, and exceeds that of Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore, and San Francisco.

The Chicago Tunnel System involves a labyrinth of small tunnels or subways, six by seven and one-half feet in size, and sixty-two miles long, forty feet under the principal business streets within the Loop district. These tunnels connect with all railway freight depots, passenger stations and, through their sub-basements, with a number of the larger mercantile concerns. They also extend beyond the Loop--north, south, and west--a distance of about two miles. They are not designed for passenger traffic, but are used by cars laden with all sorts of merchandise, coal, ashes, etc.

There are three underground power stations, four universal freight and transfer stations (one of them occupying five floors below the ground), eighty-five ordinary stations, and twelve tunnels, extending sixty feet under the Chicago River or its branches. So far, between thirty million and forty million dollars have been expended on construction and equipment. The bores also contain the cables of the automatic telephone company.

The site of Chicago was first visited by Joliet and Marquette in 1673. The United States Government established there the frontier post of Fort Dearborn in 1804. On October 8 and 9, 1871, occurred the memorable fire which reduced the greater part of the city to ashes. In 1886 occurred the Haymarket riot, in 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition was held in Chicago, and in 1894 the Pullman strike, the greatest in history, centered in Chicago.

=Cincinnati= (_sin-si-nä´ti_), =Ohio=. [The “Queen City,” named in honor of Cincinnatus, the Roman patriot.]

It is the second city of Ohio, on the north bank of the river Ohio, two hundred and seventy miles southeast of Chicago by rail, opposite the cities of Covington and Newport, in Kentucky. Steam ferries and six lofty bridges connect the city with the Kentucky shore; the suspension bridge by Roebling is two thousand two hundred and fifty feet long, and cost one million eight hundred thousand dollars.

Cincinnati occupies an exceedingly broken and irregular site, the more densely built parts being enclosed between the Ohio River and steep hills. The river front is upwards of fourteen miles in length. A second terrace is fifty or sixty feet higher, and a district between the hills and the Miami Canal, known as “over the Rhine,” is occupied by the large German colony.

The main portion of the city is regularly laid out and its streets are well paved. The chief shopping district is bounded by Fourth, Main, Seventh, and Elm Streets. The best residential quarters are on the surrounding highlands, built on a succession of irregular hills, by whose steepness they are broken into a series of some five and twenty villages, interspersed with parks.

Fountain Square, an expansion of Fifth Street, may, perhaps, be called the business center of the city and from it start most of the street railway lines. In the middle of the square stands the Tyler Davidson Fountain, cast at the Royal Bronze Foundry at Munich. To the north, at the corner of Fifth Street and Walnut Street, is the United States Government Building containing the Post Office, Custom House, and United States Law Courts, erected at a cost of five million dollars. It is of sawed freestone in the Corinthian style.

By following Fifth Street to the west and turning to the left down Vine Street, we pass the entrance to the Emery Arcade and reach, at the corner of the busy Fourth Street, the Chamber of Commerce. Opposite, at the northeast corner of Fourth and Vine Streets, stands the Ingalls Building. On the north side of Fourth Street, between Vine and Race Streets, is the fine Third National Bank.

Following Fourth Street towards the west, we soon reach Plum Street, which we may follow to the right to St. Paul’s Protestant Cathedral, at the corner of Seventh Street; the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter, at the corner of Eighth Street, and the Synagogue, opposite the last. In the block bounded by Central Avenue and Eighth, Ninth and Plum Streets is the City Hall, a large red building in a Romanesque style, with a lofty tower, constructed of brown granite and red sandstone at a cost of one million six hundred thousand dollars. A little to the east, in Vine Street, between Sixth and Seventh Streets, is the Public Library. To the north of this point, “over the Rhine,” is Washington Park, with the Springer Music Hall and the Exposition Building.

Among other buildings may be mentioned the County Court House, St. Xavier’s College, the Oddfellows’ Temple and the Cincinnati Hospital. Recent buildings of the modern type include the Traction Building, the Mercantile Library, the Union Trust Building, and the First National Bank.