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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives wish to congratulate the City of Chicago on
4the occasion of the 185th anniversary of its founding; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Chicago, with a population hovering at
6approximately three million, is the State's largest and the
7country's third most populous city; and
 
8    WHEREAS, A drive across Chicago's lively immigrant
9neighborhoods is a trip around the world; the cultures of
10virtually every country can be found in food stores,
11restaurants, shops, places of worship, and street-corner
12conversations; and
 
13    WHEREAS, Chicago's first permanent non-indigenous resident
14was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a free black
15man from Haiti whose father was a French sailor and whose
16mother was an African slave; he came to Chicago in the 1770s
17via the Mississippi River from New Orleans with his Native
18American wife, and their home stood at the mouth of the Chicago
19River; and
 
20    WHEREAS, Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago was
21ideally situated to take advantage of the trading

 

 

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1possibilities created by the nation's westward expansion; the
2completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 created a
3water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River;
4today, 50 percent of U.S. rail freight passes through Chicago,
5even as the city has become the nation's busiest aviation
6center, thanks to O'Hare and Midway international airports;
7and
 
8    WHEREAS, The buildings, streets, and sidewalks of Chicago
9in its early days were made of wood, and most of them burned to
10the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; the Chicago Fire
11Department training academy is on the site of the O'Leary
12property where the fire began; the Chicago Water Tower and
13Pumping Station at Michigan and Chicago avenues are among the
14few buildings to have survived the fire; and
 
15    WHEREAS, Chicago rebuilt quickly; much of the debris was
16dumped into Lake Michigan as landfill, forming the
17underpinnings for what is now Grant Park, Millennium Park, and
18the Art Institute of Chicago; only 22 years later, Chicago
19celebrated its comeback by holding the World's Columbian
20Exposition of 1893, with its memorable White City; one of the
21Exposition buildings was rebuilt to become the Museum of
22Science and Industry; and
 
23    WHEREAS, Chicagoans have demonstrated their ingenuity in

 

 

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1matters large and small; the nation's first skyscraper, the
210-story, steel-framed Home Insurance Building, was built in
31884 at LaSalle and Adams streets and demolished in 1931; when
4residents were threatened by waterborne illnesses from sewage
5flowing into Lake Michigan, they reversed the Chicago River in
61900 to make it flow toward the Mississippi; the start of the
7Historic Route 66 begins at Grant Park on Adams Street in the
8front of the Art Institute of Chicago; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Chicago was the birthplace of the refrigerated
10rail car (Swift), mail-order retailing (Sears and Montgomery
11Ward), the car radio (Motorola), and the TV remote control
12(Zenith); the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction,
13ushering in the Atomic Age, took place at the University of
14Chicago in 1942; the 1,451-foot Willis Tower, formerly known
15as the Sears Tower, completed in 1974, was the tallest
16building in the world from 1974 to 1998; and
 
17    WHEREAS, Chicago has become a global city, a thriving
18center of international trade and commerce, and a place where
19people of every nationality and background come to pursue the
20American dream; therefore, be it
 
21    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
22HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
23we congratulate the City of Chicago on the 185th anniversary

 

 

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1of its founding and wish the city many more wonderful years;
2and be it further
 
3    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
4presented to the Mayor of Chicago as symbol of our respect and
5esteem.