. Chicago. k after block of marble-fronts and red-brick mansions stand un-altered, except by the ravages of time. 49 Chicago Their lawns are unkept, their iron balus-trades are rusty; yet like decayed aristo-crats who have known better days, thesegrimy old houses of an austere past evincea courtliness and dignity quite lacking inthe Lake Shore palaces of modern mil-lionaires. Moreover, like the families thatonce inhabited them, they antedate theGreat Fire, — a sine qua non of Chicagopatricianship. Though the cabin erected by JeanBaptiste Point de Saible, a San Domingannegro, gives an apparent
. Chicago. k after block of marble-fronts and red-brick mansions stand un-altered, except by the ravages of time. 49 Chicago Their lawns are unkept, their iron balus-trades are rusty; yet like decayed aristo-crats who have known better days, thesegrimy old houses of an austere past evincea courtliness and dignity quite lacking inthe Lake Shore palaces of modern mil-lionaires. Moreover, like the families thatonce inhabited them, they antedate theGreat Fire, — a sine qua non of Chicagopatricianship. Though the cabin erected by JeanBaptiste Point de Saible, a San Domingannegro, gives an apparent priority in ageto the North Side, the West Side may atleast challenge its rival in the matter ofantiquity. In 1683 the Chevalier de laSalle was housed in a log fort somewhereupon our rivers banks, while a treatymade with the Indians somewhat over acentury later by General Anthony Wayne,speaks of Chikago as a place wherethere was a fort. Tradition, as recorded 50 The Old ^Marble-Fronts of Washington Street. ?>^. Wkl ^--^}^ The Great West Side by so credible an early settler as GurdonS. Hubbard, holds that this fort stood onthe western shore of the river not far fromWolf Point, and that at the end of theeighteenth century it was occupied as atrading-post by Guarie, the Frenchmanby whose name the rivers northern branchwas once called. In view of this, may not those Chicago-ans who, like myself, were born upon theGreat West Side, look with pride upontheir birthplace as once a domain of NewFrance, while leaving the North-Sider toblush for the dusky parvenu who first in-habited his land? Should a claim basedsolely upon historical tradition be scoutedby our rivals, we of the West Side mayretort that our modest bailiwick was be-yond peradventure settled by Caucasians;since upon the West Side was situated theindubitable farm called Hardscrabble,where, over four months before Chicagos 51 Chicago boasted Massacre, two white men werekilled by the Indians. Any aristocratic pre-tensions
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectchicagoillhistory
