alive when Chicago did not exist, even as a fort in a
swamp at the mouth of the Chicago River--the river
from which, by the way, the city took its name, and
which in turn took its own name from an Indian word
meaning "skunk."

I do not claim that there are many people still alive
who were alive when Chicago was n't there at all, or
that such people are feeling very active, or that they re-
member much about it, for in 102 years a man forgets
a lot of little things. Nevertheless, there are living
men older than Chicago.

Just one hundred years ago Fort Dearborn, at the
mouth of the river, was being rebuilt, after a massacre
by the Indians. Eighty-five years ago Chicago was a
village of one hundred people. Sixty-five years ago
this village had grown into a city of approximately the
present size of Evanston--a suburb of Chicago, with
less than thirty thousand people. Fifty-five years ago
Chicago had something over one hundred thousand in-
habitants. Forty-five years ago, at the time of the
Chicago fire, the city was as large as Washington is
now--over three hundred thousand. In the ten years
which followed the disaster, Chicago was not only en-
tirely rebuilt, and very much improved, but also it in-
creased in population to half a million, or about the
size of Detroit. In the next decade it actually doubled
in size, so that, twenty-five years ago, it passed
the million mark. Soon after that it pushed Phila-

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