Chicago Portage National Historic Site Volunteers

10/30/2026

From our friends at the I&M Canal National Heritage Area.

Before Illinois was Illinois, it was part of Indiana. 🗺️

Of, more specifically, the Indiana Territory. Similarly, before Wisconsin was Wisconsin, it was part of the Illinois Territory—and then the Michigan Territory!

This illustration from our “The History of the I&M Canal” exhibit traces these changing names and boundaries as territories became states. Follow Illinois through the maps: part of the Northwest Territory in 1787, Indiana Territory in 1800, Illinois Territory in 1809 and, finally, a state in 1818.

Adopted on July 13, 1787, the Northwest Ordinance established the framework for that progression, allowing new states to join the Union on equal footing with the original states.

📍 Explore the stories behind the maps at the I&M Canal Visitor Center, 754 First Street in La Salle. Featuring illustrations by Tom Willcockson, the exhibit brings the canal’s history—and the events that shaped it—to life.

🔗 https://iandmcanal.org/canalexhibit
📍 754 First Street • Downtown La Salle
☕ Lock 16 Café: Wednesday-Sunday, 8 am-3 pm
🕗 Visitor Center & Gift Shop: Wednesday-Sunday, 8 am-4 pm

09/28/2026

Late in September 1833 the so-called United Bands of the Ojibwa, Odawa and Potawatomi Tribes gathered in Chicago to sign the Treaty of Chicago. In exchange for relinquishing about 5 million acres of land in Illinois, and agreeing to move to a reservation west of the Mississippi by 1835, they were promised a million dollars.

Five thousand Indians camped along the banks of the Chicago River, traded with the locals, and raised hell each night. The population of the town in 1833 was about 350 Americans, French traders, Metis and a few Pottawatomi traders.

At the same time an Englishman, Charles La Trobe was passing through Chicago and described the gathering in his book: "A Tour Through North America; Together with a Comprehensive View of the Canadas and the United States, as Adapted for Agricultural Emigration."

"The interior of the village was one of chaos of mud, rubbish, and confusion." "You will find horse-dealers and horse stealers - rogues of every description - white, black, brown and red; half-breeds quarter breeds, and men of no breed at all; dealers in pigs, sharpers of every degree; peddlars, grog-sellers; Indian agents and Indian traders.

The little village was in a uproar from morning to night, and from night to morning; for during the hours of darkness, when the housed portion of the population of Chicago strove to obtain repose in the crowded plank edifices of the village, the Indians howled, sang, wept, yelled, and whooped in their various encampments. With all this, whites seemed to me more pagan than the red men."

Illustration: The last council of the Potawatomi Indians with Commissioners of the United States Government, held in Chicago, September 26, 1833. Reprinted from “The Last Council of the Pottawatomies, 1833,” by Lawrence C. Earle, 1902

09/15/2026

The Chicago Portage is still operating today.

Roughly a quarter of all freight rail traffic in the United States passes through Chicago, and a significant share of it moves slower through the city than it does across the country.

Six of the seven Class I railroads meet here. Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City. Nowhere else in North America do that many converge.

The reason is geography plus history. Lake Michigan blocks east-west movement, forcing everything to funnel around the southern tip. Chicago sat at that pinch point and the railroads arrived starting in 1848. By the 1860s the city was already the national junction, and every line built toward it rather than through it.

That produced the structural problem that still exists. Eastern railroads and western railroads built to Chicago and stopped. Freight arriving from the west has to be handed off to a different company to continue east, which means yards, switching, interchange agreements and delay.

The often-cited figure is that a container can cross from Los Angeles to Chicago in about 48 hours and then take 30 hours or more to get across Chicago.

CREATE, a public-private program launched in 2003, has been attacking the worst chokepoints with grade separations, flyovers and signal upgrades. The 75th Street Corridor project is the biggest piece. Progress has been real and slow.

Passenger rail runs on the same foundation. Union Station handles Amtrak's national network, and more long distance routes originate or terminate in Chicago than anywhere else. Metra runs 11 lines on 500 miles of track.

Add the intermodal yards in Joliet and Elwood, some of the largest in the hemisphere.

Everything in this country that moves by rail eventually comes through here.

07/28/2026

Three hundred and fifty three years ago today, Joliet & Marquette were paddling up the Illinois River toward the Chicago Portage.
Father Jacques Marquette described the end of his, and Louis Jolliet's expedition in July of 1673...

"AFTER a month’s Navigation, while descending Missisipi from the 4znd to the 34th degree, and beyond, and after preaching the Gospel as well as I could to the Nations that I met, we start on the 17th of July from the village of the akensea, to retrace our steps.

We therefore reascend the Missisipi which gives us much trouble in breasting its Currents. It is true that we leave it, at about the 38th degree, to enter another river, (the Illinois) which greatly shortens our road, and takes us with but little effort to the lake of the Ilinois (Lake Michigan).

We have seen nothing like this river that we enter, as regards its fertility of soil, its prairies and woods; its cattle, elk, deer, wildcats, bustards, swans, ducks, parroquets, and even beaver. There are many small lakes and rivers. That on which we sailed is wide, deep, and still, for 65 leagues. In the spring and during part of The summer there is only one portage of half a league. We found on it a village of Ilinois called Kaskasia, consisting of 74 Cabins. They received us very well, and obliged me to promise that I would return to instruct them. One of the chiefs of this nation, with his young men, escorted us to the Lake of the Ilinois, whence, at last, at The end of September, we reached the bay des puants, from which we had started at the beginning of June."

To learn more about their journey of discovery, and how what they discovered led to the creation of Chicago, join Friends of the Chicago Portage's free public interpretive tour of the Chicago Portage National Historic Site (4800 S. Harlem, Lyons, IL) this coming Saturday, August 1st, at 10am. More here:
http://drupal.library.cmu.edu/chicago/tours

06/25/2026

Here's the birth story of Chicago in 303 words. If you'd like a little more detail than this short story, you'll love Friends of the Chicago Portage's free interpretive tours of the Chicago Portage National Historic Site located in Portage Woods Forest Preserve (4800 S. Harlem, Lyons). Tours begin at 10am on the 1st Saturday of each month. Next tour is on July 4th! More info here:
http://drupal.library.cmu.edu/chicago/tours

06/23/2026

When Glacial Lake Chicago was draining through the Chicago Outlet Valley its volume was larger than the Amazon. It tumbled bus sized boulders down its riverbed.

When the glacier melted back far enough North, Lake Chicago found the St. Laurence River an easier way to the ocean. Glacial Lake Chicago evolved into Lake Michigan. The channels cut by the pro-glacial lake's outlet dried into Mud Lake and the Saganashkee Slough.

The Des Plaines River, cut off from its ancient outlet to Lake Michigan through what is now the South Branch of the Chicago River, found its way into the old Chicago Outlet valley.

The melting glacier's water carved one of the shortest connections between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi watersheds and created the Chicago Portage.

Lake Michigan and Saginaw Bay once belonged to the Mississippi River watershed.

About 13,000 years ago, the northern outlets of the Great Lakes were still blocked by the Laurentide Ice Sheet.

At the time, Glacial Lake Chicago occupied the Lake Michigan basin. Its outlet flowed south through what is now the Illinois River valley and into the Mississippi River.

Glacial Lake Saginaw flowed west through what are now the Maple and Grand River valleys before entering Glacial Lake Chicago.

Water from both basins ultimately entered the Mississippi River watershed.

As the glaciers retreated, new outlets opened and the Great Lakes gradually shifted toward their modern drainage routes.

For a time, early stage Great Lakes water was taking a very different route to the sea.

Image: Michalek via ResearchGate

06/03/2026

About this time in June 1673 Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette stopped at an Indian village on a river that flowed into Green Bay. He called them the people of the wild oats (F***e Avoine) and went on to describe in detail the wild rice they harvested from the waters near their village.
When he told them what he and Joliet were attempting, they warned the explorers of the dangers ahead:

"I told these peoples of the f***e avoine of My design to go and discover Those Remote nations, in order to Teach them the Mysteries of Our Holy Religion. They were Greatly surprised to hear it, and did their best to dissuade me. They represented to me that I would meet Nations who never show mercy to Strangers, but Break Their heads with. out any cause; and that war was kindled Between Various peoples who dwelt upon our Route, which Exposed us to the further manifest danger of being killed by the bands of Warriors who are ever in the Field. They also said that the great River was very dangerous, when one does not know the difficult Places; that it was full of horrible monsters, which devoured men and Canoes Together; that there was even a demon, who was heard from a great distance, who barred the way, and swallowed up all who ventured to approach him; Finally that the Heat was so ,excessive In those countries that it would Inevitably Cause Our death.

I thanked them for the good advice that they gave me, but told them that I could not follow it, because the salvation of souls was at stake, for which I would be delighted to give my life; that I scoffed at the alleged demon; that we would easily defend ourselves against those marine monsters; and, moreover, that We would be on our guard to avoid the other dangers with which they threatened us." - from The Journal of Père Jacques Marquette

Hear the rest of the story of Joliet & Marquette's dramatic journey to discover the Mississippi and pass through the old Chicago Portage this Saturday, June 6, when Friends of the Chicago Portage presents a free interpretive tour of the Chicago Portage National Historic Site. The tour begins at 10am in Portage Woods Forest Preserve (4800 S. Harlem Av.) front of the statue of Joliet, Marquette and their Native American guide. More at:
http://drupal.library.cmu.edu/chicago/tours

05/01/2026

Tomorrow, Saturday May 2, Friends of the Chicago Portage kick off our 25th year of leading free public interpretive tours at the Chicago Portage National Historic Site in Portage Woods Forest Preserve in Lyons, Illinois. Veteran tour guides tell the birth stories of Chicago on the first Saturday of each month until October. More here: http://drupal.library.cmu.edu/chicago/tours

04/18/2026

Friends of the Chicago Portage proudly announce the start of their 25th year of conducting free monthly interpretive tours of the Chicago Portage National Historic Site.

The first tour begins Saturday, May 2nd, at 10am in Portage Woods Forest Preserve in Lyons. Free tours will continue on the 1st Saturday of the month until the last tour on Saturday, October 3rd.

Chicago owes its very existence to the location of the Chicago Portage. National Historic Site status protects a small unremarkable ditch on the west side of Harlem just north of the Stevenson Expressway, in Portage Woods Forest Preserve. Short and shallow, Portage Creek is a key link in Chicago’s largely unknown birth story. Once a month, experienced Friends of the Chicago Portage tour guides lead visitors back through time to discover how the portage formed, used, and how it led to the birth of Chicago.

The first European explorers, Jolliet & Marquette, passed through the ancient Chicago Portage in 1673. It provided an easy connection between the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico by linking Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River. Since that time, nearly every site of Chicago’s origins has been destroyed.

The remains of Fort Dearborn are buried under three layers of Wacker Drive. The Portage Trail is completely paved over, and Old Mud Lake is now the site of the world’s largest sewage treatment plant. The Chicago Portage National Historic Site is the only major remnant of the discovery and settlement of Chicago. The late Tribune columnist John Husar, after touring the site called it “Our sacred ground”. It is certainly Chicago’s “Plymouth Rock”.

The Portage Woods Forest Preserve (4800 S. Harlem, Lyons, IL) is on the west side of Harlem Ave. just 2 blocks north of the Stevenson Expressway (I55). Meet at the monumental statue of Joliet and Marquette and their Native American Guide at 10am.

Tours are approximately 1 ½ hour and 1/2 mile in length on asphalt and dirt paths through the woods.
Wear long pants and walking shoes or boots. All tours are free and open to the public. Tours run rain or shine. Reservations for are not required.

More info here:

The Chicago Portage archive is available for download as a single .zip file from here. The archive includes copies of The Chicago Portage Ledger, photographs of the site, and the video "Connected Worlds: The Story of the Chicago Portage. Furthermore, this December, we are launching a new platform fo...