The Chicago Region: Finley Map Detail, 1831

Skokie
A Community History Using Old Maps

Skokie Historical Society

Chicago Neighborhood History Project

Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library

2. The Chicago Region: Finley Map Detail, 1831

This is a detail from a map drawn about 1830 when the Chicago area was beginning to attract settlers. Notice the diagonal dotted lines which form the north and south Indian Boundary Lines. By a treaty of 1816, the Potawatami Indians ceded land to the U.S. Government where a proposed canal might be built, joining the south branch of the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River and eventually joining them to the Mississippi River. The canal was eventually built between 1836 and 1848, and became known as the Illinois and Michigan Canal. It was a powerful influence on the early development of Chicago.

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Anthony Finley, detail from Map of Indiana and Illinois (Philadelphia, 1831). Newberry Library.

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The Chicago Neighborhood History Project is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Skokie Public Library.

[Original] Web design by Jimmy Zhu (Skokie Public Library) and Pat Witry (Skokie Historical Society) ©2006