BUILDING A SKYSCRAPER

GREAT CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES

HISTORICAL, DESCRIPTIVE, COMMERCIAL
INDUSTRIAL
BY
GERTRUDE VAN DUYN SOUTHWORTH
AUTHOR OF “BUILDERS OF OUR COUNTRY,” BOOKS I AND II,
“THE STORY OF THE EMPIRE STATE,” AND
“A FIRST BOOK IN AMERICAN HISTORY”
AND
STEPHEN ELLIOTT KRAMER
ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, WASHINGTON, D.C.

IROQUOIS PUBLISHING COMPANY, Inc.
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
GERTRUDE VAN DUYN SOUTHWORTH AND STEPHEN ELLIOTT KRAMER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
316.3

PREFACE

Just as the history of a country is largely the history of its great men, so the geography of a country is largely the story of its great cities.

How much more easily history is grasped and remembered when grouped around attractive biographies. With great cities as the centers of geography-study, what is generally considered a dry, matter-of-fact subject can be made to attract, to inspire, and to fix the things which should be remembered.

This book, “Great Cities of the United States,” includes the ten largest cities of this country, together with San Francisco, New Orleans, and Washington. In it the important facts of our country's geography have been grouped around these thirteen cities. The story of Chicago includes the story of farming in the Middle West, of the great ore industry on and around the Great Lakes, and of the varied means of transportation. Cotton, sugar, and location are shown to account largely for the greatness of New Orleans. In a similar way, the stories of the other cities sum up the important geography of our country.

Enough of the history of each city is given to show its growth and development. The distinctive points of interest are described so that one feels acquainted with the things which attract the sight-seer. The commercial and industrial features are made to stand out as the logical sequence of fortunate location for manufacturing, for securing raw materials, for markets, and for convenient means of transportation.

In order to make uniformly fair comparisons, local statistics have been ignored and all data have been taken from the latest government reports.

The authors wish to express their sincere appreciation to the historical societies, to the chambers of commerce, to those in the various cities who have furnished material and reviewed the manuscript, and to all others who have rendered assistance.

It is hoped that by the use of this book our country, in all its greatness, will mean more and will appeal more to the boys and girls of America than ever before.

To the publishers of Allen's “Geographical and Industrial Studies: United States” we are indebted for the use of the map appearing at the end of the text.

THE AUTHORS

CONTENTS

LIST OF MAPS

THE MUNICIPAL BUILDING

GREAT CITIES OF THE UNITED STATES

[NEW YORK]

INDIANS VISITING THE HALF MOON

“Drop anchor!” rang out the command as the little Dutch vessel furled her sails. On every side were the shining waters of a widespread bay, while just ahead stretched the forest-covered shores of an island.

All on board were filled with excitement, wondering what lay beyond. “Have we at last really found a waterway across this new land of America?” they asked. There was only one way to know—to go and see. So on once more, past the island, glided the Half Moon. From time to time, as she sailed along, the redskin savages visited her and traded many valuable furs for mere trifles.

But at last the Half Moon could go no further. This was not a waterway to India, only a river leading into the depths of a wild and rugged country. Sick with disappointment, her captain, Henry Hudson, turned about, journeyed the length of the river which was later to bear his name, once more passed the island at the mouth of the river, and sailed away. All this in 1609.

“MY BROTHERS, WE HAVE COME TO TRADE WITH YOU”

PETER STUYVESANT

Manhattan was the Indian name for the island at the mouth of the Hudson River. Tempted by Henry Hudson's furs, the thrifty Dutchmen sent ship after ship to trade with the American Indians. And as the years went by, these Dutchmen built a trading post on Manhattan, and a little Dutch village grew up about the post. Soon the Dutch West India Company was formed to send out colonists to Manhattan and the land along the Hudson. A governor too was sent. His name was Peter Minuit.

Now Peter Minuit was honest, and when he found that the Dutch were living on Indian land to which they had helped themselves, he was not content. So he called together the tribes which lived on Manhattan and, while the painted warriors squatted on the ground, spoke to them in words like these: “My brothers, we have come to trade with you. And that we may be near to buy your furs when you have gathered them, we wish to live among you, on your land. It is your land, and as we do not mean to steal it from you, I have asked you to meet me here that I may buy from you this island which you call Manhattan.” Then, in payment for the island, Peter Minuit offered the Indians ribbons, knives, rings, and colored beads—things dearly loved by the savages. The bargain was soon closed, and for twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets the Dutch became the owners of Manhattan Island.

NEW YORK IN OLDEN TIMES

The Dutch settlement on Manhattan was called New Amsterdam. New Amsterdam was a pretty town, with its quaint Dutch houses built gable end toward the street and its gardens bright with flowers. Dutch windmills with their long sweeping arms rose here and there, and near the water stood the fort.

But though New Amsterdam grew and prospered in the years after Peter Minuit bought Manhattan, life there did not run as smoothly as it might. In time Peter Stuyvesant came to be governor, and a stern, tyrannical ruler he was. He always saw things from the Dutch West India Company's point of view, not from the colonists'. Disagreement followed disagreement till the people were nearly at the end of their patience.

WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE

Then, one day in 1664, an English fleet sailed into the bay. A letter was brought ashore for Governor Stuyvesant. England too, so it seemed, laid claim to this land along the Hudson River, and now asked the Dutch governor to give up his colony to the Duke of York, a brother of England's king. This done, the Dutch colonists could keep their property, and all their rights and privileges. In fact, even greater privileges would then be given them.

In a towering rage Governor Stuyvesant tore the letter into bits and stamped upon them and called upon his colonists to rise and help him repulse the English. But the colonists would not rise. They felt that there was nothing to gain by so doing. The English promised much, far more than they had had under the rule of tyrannical Peter Stuyvesant and the Dutch West India Company.

What could the governor do? Surely he alone could not defeat the English fleet. So at last, sorrowfully and reluctantly, he signed a surrender, and the Dutch Colony was given over to the English.

Once in possession, the English renamed New Amsterdam, calling it New York. Now followed a hundred years of ever-increasing river, coast, and foreign trade, of growing industries, of prosperity. And then—the Revolution.

When the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, George Washington and his army were in New York, guarding the city from the English. But before the close of the year he was forced to retreat, and the English took possession. By the close of the Revolution, in 1783, the English had robbed the city of much of its wealth and had ruined its business.

THE FIRST TRAIN IN NEW YORK STATE

After the war the thirteen states who had won their freedom from England joined together, drew up a constitution for their common government, and chose their first president. Then came the thirtieth of April, 1789. The streets were crowded, and a great throng packed the space before New York's Federal Hall. This was Inauguration Day, and on the balcony stood General Washington taking the oath of office. It was a solemn moment. The ceremony over, a mighty shout arose—“Long live George Washington, president of the United States.” Cheers filled the air, bells pealed, and cannons roared. The new government had begun, and, for a time, New York was the capital city.

Already New York was recovering from the effects of the war. Her trade with European ports had begun again, and it was no uncommon sight to see over one hundred vessels loading or unloading in her harbor at one time.

New York harbor is one of the largest and best in the world. Add to this the city's central location on the Atlantic seaboard, and it is no wonder that a vast coasting trade grew up with Eastern and Southern ports.

Without doubt, however, the greatest business event in the history of New York City was the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. The canal joined the Great Lakes with the Hudson River, making a water route from the rich Northwest to the Atlantic, with New York as the natural terminus. So with nearly all of the trade of the lake region at her command, New York soon became a great commercial center, outstripping both Boston and Philadelphia, which up to this time had ranked ahead of New York.

A few years later the building of railroads began. The first railway from New York was begun in 1831, and it was not long before the city was the terminus of several lines and the chief railroad center of the Atlantic coast. As the railroads did more and more of the carrying, and the Erie Canal lost its former importance, New York did not suffer from the change, but still controlled much of the trade between the Northwest and European nations. Besides, as time went on, she built up an immense traffic with all parts of the continent, being easily reached by rail from the north, east, south, and west.

THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK—ENTRANCES TO HER HARBOR

The first half of the nineteenth century saw the arrival of many thousand immigrants from Europe. These, with the thousands of people who came from other parts of America, attracted by the city's growing industries, made more and more room necessary. First, about 13,000 acres across the Harlem River were added to the city. Then, in 1895, the city limits were extended to the borders of Yonkers and Mt. Vernon. And finally, in 1898, New York, Brooklyn, Long Island City, and some other near-by towns were united under one government, forming together Greater New York, the largest American city and the second largest city in the world.

New York to-day covers about 360 square miles, its greatest length from north to south being 32 miles, its greatest width about 16. The city is divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond. The Borough of Manhattan, on the long narrow island of that name, lies between the Hudson and the East River. North and east of Manhattan, on the mainland, lies the Borough of The Bronx. Just across the narrow East River, on Long Island, are the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn; while Staten Island is known as the Borough of Richmond.

NEW YORK SKYSCRAPERS

HOW A SKYSCRAPER IS MADE

As more and more people came to the city the business area on Manhattan proved too small, and with water to the east, to the west, and to the south, there was no possibility of spreading out in these directions. Yet business kept increasing, and the cry for added room became more and more urgent. Finally, the building of the ten-story Tower Building in 1889 solved the difficulty. It showed that, though hemmed in on all sides, there was still one direction in which the business section could grow—upwards. And upwards it has grown. To-day lower Manhattan fairly bristles with huge steel-framed skyscrapers which furnish miles and miles of office space, twenty, thirty, forty, in one case even fifty-five, stories above the street level. The supplying of office and factory space is not the only use that has been made of these steel buildings. Great apartment houses from twelve to fifteen stories high provide homes for thousands. Mammoth hotels covering entire city blocks furnish temporary homes for the multitudes which visit the city each year. Fifteen of the largest of these can house more than 15,000 guests at one time—a good-sized city in itself. Thus has Manhattan become one of the most densely populated areas on the globe. In the boroughs of Queens and Richmond, on the other hand, large tracts of land are given over to farms and market gardens.

Manhattan is at once the smallest and the most important borough in the city. Here are the homes of more than 2,000,000 people, the business section of Greater New York, and the chief shipping districts.

A MAMMOTH HOTEL

When building the narrow irregular streets of their little town on lower Manhattan, the inhabitants of New Amsterdam little dreamed that they would one day be the scene of the enormous traffic of modern New York. Those old, narrow, winding streets to-day swarm with hurrying throngs from morning till night and are among the busiest and noisiest in the world.

The newer part of the city from Fourteenth Street north to the Harlem River has been laid out in wide parallel avenues running north and south. These are crossed by numbered streets running east and west from river to river. Fifth Avenue runs lengthwise through the middle of the borough, dividing it into the East and West sides. On the East Side you will find the crowded homes of the poorer classes, where many of the working people of Manhattan live. On the West Side are many manufacturing plants, lumber yards, and warehouses. On the upper stretch of Fifth Avenue, and on the streets leading off, are the homes of many of New York's wealthiest residents. Opposite Central Park are some of the most costly and beautiful mansions in the city.

In this regular arrangement of streets, Broadway alone is the exception to the rule. Beginning at the southern end of the island, it runs straight north for more than two miles, then turns west and winds its way throughout the whole length of the city. About its lower end, and on some of the neighboring streets, center the banking and financial interests. Here are many of the city's richest banks and trust companies.

FIFTH AVENUE FROM THIRTY-FOURTH STREET

BROADWAY CROSSING SIXTH AVENUE

Wall Street, running east from Broadway about one third of a mile from the southern end of Manhattan, was named from the wall which the Dutch, in 1683, built across the island at this point, because they heard that the English were planning to attack them from the north. Though only half a mile in length, Wall Street probably surpasses all others in the extent of its business.

WALL STREET

North of the banking center is the great wholesale region, where merchants from all parts of the country buy their stock in large quantities, to sell again to the retail merchants. Beyond the wholesale region are the large retail stores—New York's great shopping district. In these retail stores the merchants who have bought from the wholesalers sell direct to the people who are to use the goods. In this middle section of the island are also most of the better-class hotels, restaurants, clubs, and theaters, which have been gradually making their way further and further uptown, crowding the best resident section still further north.

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE

The customhouse, where the government collects duties on goods brought into the port of New York from other lands, was built at the extreme southern end of the island, where Fort Amsterdam used to stand. The United States Sub-Treasury, in Wall Street, stands on the site of Federal Hall, where Washington was inaugurated. Here are stored large quantities of gold, silver, and paper money belonging to the government. In and about City Hall Park are the post office, the courthouse, and the Hall of Records. The new public library, on Fifth Avenue between Fortieth and Forty-second streets, is the largest library building in the world.

The city's parks are many. Central Park, in the center of Manhattan, ranks among the world's finest pleasure grounds. It is two miles and a half long and one-half mile wide, and has large stretches of woodland, beautiful lawns, gleaming lakes, and sparkling fountains. Here, too, are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cleopatra's Needle—an obelisk thousands of years old, presented to the city by a ruler of Egypt. And here are reservoirs which hold the water brought by aqueducts from the Croton River, about forty miles north of the city. This river was for many years the sole source of Manhattan's water supply. In 1905, however, the city began work on an immense aqueduct which is to bring all the drinking-water for all five boroughs from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountain region.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

MANHATTAN ISLAND AND THE CITY PARKS

THE TOMB OF GENERAL GRANT

The tomb of General Grant is at the northern end of Riverside Park, which is on a high ridge along the Hudson River above Seventy-second Street. Riverside Drive, skirting this park, is one of the most beautiful boulevards in the city.

Then there are Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and Pelham Bay and Van Cortlandt parks in The Bronx. The city zoo and the Botanical Gardens are in Bronx Park. And in addition to all these there are more than two hundred smaller open spaces and squares scattered over the city.

Columbia University, New York University, Fordham, the College of the City of New York, and Barnard College are among the most noted of New York's many educational institutions.

About five million people live in this wonderful city, and to supply them all with food is a tremendous business in itself. During the night special trains bring milk, butter, and eggs; refrigerator cars come laden with beef; and from the market gardens of Long Island fruits and vegetables are gathered and taken to the city during the cool of the night that they may be sold, fresh and inviting, in the morning.

Great numbers of New York's inhabitants are from foreign lands. Several thousand Chinese manage to exist in the few blocks which make up New York's Chinatown. A large Italian population lives huddled together in Little Italy, as well as in other sections of the city. Thousands upon thousands of Jews are crowded into the Hebrew section on the lower east side of Manhattan. There is also a German and a French colony, as well as distinct Negro, Greek, Russian, Armenian, and Arab quarters. Most of these are in lower Manhattan, and in consequence lower Manhattan is by no means deserted when the vast army of shoppers, workers, and business men have gone home for the night.

WHERE THE SEALS LIVE IN BRONX PARK

THE ELEPHANT HOUSE IN BRONX PARK

VISITING THE BIRDS IN BRONX PARK

The necessity of carrying these shoppers, workers, and business men to and from their homes in the residence sections of the city and in the suburbs gradually led to the development of New York's wonderful rapid-transit system. Within the borders of Manhattan itself, horse cars soon proved unequal to handling the crowds that each day traveled north and south. So the first elevated railway was built. Then six years later, a second line was constructed. Others soon followed, not only in Manhattan but also in Brooklyn and The Bronx. Raised high above the busy streets by means of iron trestles, and making but few stops, these elevated trains could carry passengers much faster than the surface cars, and for a time the problem seemed to be solved.

THE OLD AND THE NEW

A NEW YORK ELEVATED RAILWAY

The traveling public was rapidly increasing, however, and before the close of the nineteenth century both the surface cars, now run by electricity, and the elevated trains were sorely overcrowded during the morning and evening rush hours. More cars were absolutely necessary, and as there was little room to run them on or above the surface, New York decided to make use of the space under the ground, just as it had already turned to account that overhead.

NEW YORK'S FIRST TWO-STORY CAR

A SUBWAY ENTRANCE

The work was begun in 1901. A small army of men was set to blasting and digging tunnels underneath the city streets,—a tremendous task,—and in 1904 the first subway was opened. Electric cars running on these underground tracks carry passengers from one end of the island to the other with the speed of a railroad train.

SUBWAY TUNNELS

A FERRY BOAT

But what of the means of travel for those living outside of Manhattan? Years back, business men living on Long Island had to cross the East River on ferry boats. This was particularly inconvenient in winter, when fogs or floating ice were liable to cause serious delays. Besides, as New York grew, such numbers crossed on the ferries that they were overcrowded. Relief came for a time when, in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was built over the East River from Brooklyn to New York. This bridge is over a mile long. Across it run a roadway, a walk for foot passengers, and tracks for elevated trains as well as for surface cars. Two even longer bridges, the Williamsburg Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, have since been built between Manhattan and Brooklyn. Then, too, there is the Queensboro Bridge, between Manhattan and the Borough of Queens.

NEW YORK'S SUBWAY AND BRIDGE CONNECTIONS

Though thousands and thousands daily crossed the East River over these bridges, men soon foresaw that the time was not far distant when ferries and bridges together would be unable to take care of the ever-growing traffic. Further means of travel had to be provided, and the success of the city's underground railway suggested a practical idea. As early as 1908, the subway was continued and carried under the East River to Brooklyn. Several tubes have since been built under the Hudson, connecting Manhattan with the New Jersey shore. To-day New York is building many miles of new subway under various parts of the city as well as under the Harlem and East rivers. Carrying passengers under water has proved as great a success as carrying them underground.

BROOKLYN BRIDGE

Over and above all these means of rapid transit, Greater New York has at its service ten of America's great railroads. The Pennsylvania Railroad has an immense station in New York, one of the finest of its kind. Tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers carry its trains to New Jersey and Long Island.

THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD STATION

THE GRAND CENTRAL STATION

The new Grand Central Station is the greatest railroad terminal in the world. The station is a beautiful building of stone and marble, large enough to accommodate thirty thousand people at one time. Between railroads and tunnels, bridges and ferries, surface cars, elevated trains, and subways, New York's rapid transit system is one of the best in the world.

With such advantages as a receiving and distributing center, it is small wonder that the city has become the nation's chief market place. It is without a rival as the center of the wholesale dry-goods and wholesale grocery businesses. More than half of the imports of the United States enter by way of New York's port, and its total foreign commerce is five times that of any other city in the country.

Rubber, silk goods, furs, jewelry, coffee, tea, sugar, and tin are among the leading imports. Cotton, meats, and breadstuffs are the most important exports.

Besides being the principal market place of the United States, New York is also its greatest workshop, as it makes over one tenth of the manufactures of the country. In the manufacture of clothing alone, more than a hundred thousand people are employed. There are comparatively few large factories for carrying on this work, as much of it is done in tenement houses and in small workshops. The growth of this industry has been largely due to the abundance of cheap unskilled labor furnished by the immigrant population of the city.

Second in importance is the refining of sugar and molasses, carried on chiefly in Brooklyn along the East River, where boats laden with raw sugar from the Southern states and the West Indies unload their cargoes. New York City leads in the refining of sugar as well as in its importation.

THE BATTERY

Added to these, printing and publishing, the refining of petroleum, slaughtering and meat packing, the roasting and grinding of coffee and spices, the making of foundry and machine-shop products, cigars, tobacco, millinery, furniture, and jewelry are the leading industries of the many thousands which have grown up in the city. All this is largely due to the ease with which raw materials can be obtained and finished articles marketed. Thanks to its commercial advantages, New York leads all American cities in the value of its manufactures and surpasses them in the variety of its products.

LOWER MANHATTAN

NEW YORK CITY DOCKS

LOADING A FREIGHT STEAMER

At the southern end of Manhattan Island is the Battery. In the old days the Battery was a fort. Now it is used as an aquarium. From the Battery New York's docks extend for miles along both sides of lower Manhattan and line the Long Island and New Jersey shores as well. The wharves are piled high with bales and bags, boxes and barrels. Ships from the South come with cargoes of cotton, others bound for England take this cotton away. Tank steamers from Cuba bring molasses; similar ones are filled with petroleum destined for the ends of the earth. Cattle boats take on live stock brought from the West, grain ships load at the many elevators built at the water's edge, and vessels from all the larger ports of the world put ashore goods of every description. Along both shores of the Hudson River are the piers of the great trans-Atlantic steamship companies, the landing places of the largest and fastest passenger vessels in the world. Here also are the docks of the many river and coastwise lines which carry passengers to and from the cities and towns on the Hudson and the Atlantic coast. Half the foreign trade and travel of the United States passes over the wharves of lower Manhattan.

The entire harbor includes the Hudson and East rivers and the upper and lower New York Bay with the connecting strait known as The Narrows. The upper bay, New York's real harbor, can be entered from the ocean in three ways—a narrow winding channel around Staten Island, a northeast entrance through Long Island Sound and the East River, and an entrance through The Narrows from the lower bay.

A DOCK SCENE

A GREAT OCEAN LINER

Among the islands in the upper bay is Ellis Island, where immigrants are inspected before being allowed to enter our country. On another island stands the splendid bronze statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World,” given to the United States by the people of France. It is now America's greeting to her future citizens as they sail up the harbor.

NEW YORK HARBOR

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

What a different picture the harbor presents to-day from the one Hudson saw over three hundred years ago! The quiet undisturbed waters of that time are now alive the year around with craft of every sort, from the giant ocean liner to the graceful sailboat. Vessels freighted with merchandise, tugs towing canal boats, ferries for Staten Island, barges loaded with coal, river steamers, excursion boats, and battleships from far and near, day and night, pass in an endless procession where the solitary Indian used to glide in his silent canoe.

When the Dutch bought Manhattan it was a beautiful wooded island inhabited by Indians who supplied their simple wants by hunting and fishing. What a change the island has undergone since that time! The Indians have disappeared with the forest. In their place live and struggle vast armies of human beings gathered together from all the corners of the earth. Where squaws used to pitch their wigwams, giant skyscrapers tower up toward the clouds. The stillness of the forest has been succeeded by the noise and bustle of a busy city. The lazy monotonous life of the savage has given way to a ceaseless activity and hurry.

The twenty-four dollars which bought the whole island—less than three hundred years ago—would not now buy a single square inch in the center of the city. The hunting and fishing ground of the red men has become the heart of the greatest city of the Western Hemisphere.

NEW YORK
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), nearly 5,000,000 (4,766,883).

First city in population in the United States.

Second city in population in the world.

Divided into five sections, called boroughs.

Carries on more than half the foreign trade of the United States.

Leads all American cities in the value of its manufactures.

One of the best harbors in the world.

Connected by great railway systems with all parts of America.

Connected with the Great Lakes by the Hudson River and the Erie Canal.

A city of skyscrapers.

Wonderful system of underground, overhead, and surface transportation.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Why did the Dutch settle on Manhattan Island? How did the Dutch governor secure the land from the Indians?

2. What great ceremony connected with the establishment of the government of the United States took place in New York? Why was this ceremony held in New York?

3. What was the most important event in advancing the business growth of New York?

4. What effect did the arrival of vast numbers of immigrants have upon the city?

5. Why are there such tall buildings in New York?

6. Name some of the principal streets and their chief features; name some of the colleges and universities.

7. Give some facts about Central Park, The Bronx, and Riverside Drive.

8. Give some idea of the size of New York, its population, and the nationalities that comprise it.

9. Give a brief account of the means of transportation.

10. In what respects does New York rank first of all the cities of the United States?

11. What are its principal exports and imports?

12. What commercial advantages does New York enjoy?

13. What are the chief manufactured products of New York City, and how can it produce so much without many great factories?

14. Compare the harbor and city of to-day with that of three hundred years ago.

15. From a New York newspaper find out the foreign countries and the cities of this country to which vessels make regular sailings from New York.

16. Name all the railroads entering the city.

[CHICAGO]

“Chicago is wiped out.” “Chicago cannot rise again.” So said the newspapers all over the country, in October, 1871. And well they might think so, for the great fire of Chicago—one of the worst in the world's history—had laid low the city.

The summer had been unusually dry. For months almost no rain had fallen. The ground was hot and parched, the whole city dry as kindling wood. Then about nine o'clock on a windy Sunday night, the fire broke out in a poor section of the West Side. It seemed as if everything a spark touched, blazed up. While the firemen stood by, helpless to check the flames, rows of houses and blocks of factories burned down.

In a short time the lumber district was a great bonfire, the flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air. On and on swept the fire along the river front. Then the horror-stricken watchers saw the flames cross to the South Side. All had thought that the fire would be checked at the river, but the wind carried pieces of burning wood and paper to the roofs beyond.

The business section was burning! The firemen worked desperately, but in vain. Hundreds of Chicago's finest buildings—stores, offices, banks, and hotels—were swallowed up by the flames. The city had become a roaring furnace, and the terrified people rushed madly for safety.

AFTER THE FIRE

Once more the fire crossed the river, this time to the North Side, with its beautiful residence districts. Here too wind and flame swept all before them till Lincoln Park was reached, where at last the fire was checked in its northward course; there was nothing more to burn. It had raged for two nights and a day, laying waste a strip of land almost four miles long and one mile wide.

Courtesy of Central Trust Company of Illinois, Chicago
HOME OF JOHN KINZIE

Tuesday morning saw seventeen thousand buildings destroyed and one hundred thousand people homeless. The best part of Chicago lay in ruins. What wonder that men everywhere thought the stricken city could not rise again!

At the time this terrible disaster happened, Chicago had been a city for a little less than thirty-five years.

The mouth of the Chicago River had been a favorite meeting place for Indians and French trappers long before permanent settlement began. In 1777 a negro from San Domingo, who had come to trade with the Indians, built a log store on the north bank of the river. This store was bought in 1803 by John Kinzie, another trader and Chicago's first white settler.

The next year the United States government built Fort Dearborn on the south side of the river, not far from the lake. Though Fort Dearborn was nothing more than a stockade with blockhouses at the corners, a little settlement gradually grew up around it.

WHERE CHICAGO WAS FOUNDED

During the War of 1812 the Indians attacked the fort, burned it to the ground, and either massacred or captured most of the settlers while they were fleeing to Detroit for safety.

Fort Dearborn was rebuilt after the war, but settlers were slow in coming. By 1830 there were scarcely a hundred people in Chicago, then a little village of log houses scattered over a swampy plain. Fur trading was still the chief occupation.

A change was soon to come. The southern part of Illinois was by this time being settled and dotted with farms, and each year larger crops were produced. The farmers saw that they must get their products to the Atlantic coast if they wished to prosper, and the Great Lakes were the most convenient route over which to send them.

Lake Michigan extended into the heart of the fertile prairie lands, but its shores were almost unbroken by harbors. Men early saw the possibilities of the mouth of the Chicago River. It could be made into an excellent harbor with little expense, and if once this were done, Chicago would be the natural port of the rich Middle West.

In 1833 the government began improvements by cutting a channel through the sand bar across the mouth of the river and building stone piers into the lake to keep out the drifting sand. Vessels were soon entering the river instead of anchoring in the lake as formerly. Lake trade increased. More and more boats were bringing goods from the East to be distributed among the farmers of Illinois. The new harbor made intercourse with the outer world easy.

The growth of trade, however, was hindered by the absence of good roads. Farmers who wished to bring anything to the Chicago market had to cross the open prairie, which was wet and marshy near the town. Such a ride was an unpleasant experience, as often the wagon would stick in the deep mud, and the poor driver had no choice but to wait until help should happen along. Many preferred to take their crops to the cities farther south, where better roads had been built.

AN EARLY CHICAGO DRAWBRIDGE

“We too will have roads,” said the people of Chicago, anxious for more trade, and they set about building them with a will. Soon good roads entered the town from all directions, and over them the rich products of the surrounding country came pouring into Chicago.

Business and wealth increased, and more and more settlers arrived. Most of them came by way of the lakes, but many came in prairie schooners, as the immigrants' great covered wagons were called. By 1837 the population had risen to four thousand, and Chicago became a city.

Its growth from this time was marvelous. Its location at the head of Lake Michigan, its fine harbor, the resources of the rich back country, all combined to make it the chief commercial center of the Middle West.

WHERE THE STAGECOACH STARTED

In the early days, when Chicago was only a tiny village, there had been talk of connecting Lake Michigan at Chicago with the Illinois River by canal. As the Illinois flows into the Mississippi, this would furnish a water route from the East down the entire Mississippi valley. In 1836 the canal was actually begun. A few years later hard times came, and the work was stopped for a while, but it was finished in 1848. This was known as the Illinois and Michigan Canal. It extended from La Salle, on the Illinois River, to Chicago—a distance of over ninety miles—and offered cheap transportation between Chicago and the fertile farm lands to the south.

CHICAGO'S CANALS

Though the canal was a success, railroads did even more for the city. The year that saw the canal completed also saw the first train run from Chicago to Galena, near the Mississippi, in the heart of the lead country.

Four years later, in 1852, came railroad connection with the East, when the Michigan Southern and Michigan Central railroads entered the city. Other lines soon followed, and it was not long before Chicago was one of the important railroad centers of the country.

But while Chicago was fast becoming rich and big, it was not a pleasant place in which to live. The site of the city was a low and marshy plain, almost on a level with the lake, and the problems of drainage of such a location had to be met and solved.

In the beginning, to keep the houses dry, they were built above the ground and supported by timbers or piles. Cellars and basements were unknown, and the city streets were a disgrace. In spring they were flooded and swimming with mud. Even in summer, pools of stagnant water stood in many places. For years wagons sticking fast in the mud were common sights.

Cholera, smallpox, and scarlet fever swept the city again and again. People, knowing only too well that unsanitary conditions brought on these diseases, did their best to remedy matters. They saw that Chicago would be clean and healthy if only they could find a way to carry off her wastes.

First they decided to turn the water into the river by sloping all the streets towards it. Then came a severe flood which did much damage and showed the folly of digging down any part of the city. Chicago was too low already.

So the people hastened to raise their streets again by filling them in with sand, and this time they made gutters along the side to carry off the water. Heavy wagons soon wore away the sand, however, and the streets were as muddy as before.

Finally, an engineer advised the people to raise the whole city several feet; then brick sewers could be built beneath the street to carry the sewage into the river. At first many refused to listen to such a proposal. The undertaking was so great that it frightened them.

But as things were, business and health were suffering. Something had to be done, and at last the city determined to raise itself out of the mud, and work was begun. Ground was hauled in from the surrounding country, streets and lots were filled in, the buildings were gradually raised, and sewers were built sloping toward the river. It was a gigantic task and cost years of labor, but when it was done, Chicago was, for the first time, a dry city. It must be remembered that the area of Chicago at that time was but a small part of the present city.

Another source of trouble was the drinking-water, which was taken from Lake Michigan. The sewage in the river flowed into the lake and at times contaminated the water far out from the shore, thus poisoning the city's supply. It was therefore decided to build new waterworks, which would bring into the city pure water from farther out in the lake. A tunnel was built, extending two miles under Lake Michigan. At its outer end a great screened pipe reached up into the lake to let water into the tunnel. Over the pipe a crib was built to protect it. On the shore, pumping stations with powerful engines raised the water to high towers from which all parts of the city were supplied.

CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL, 1856

The first tunnel was completed in 1867. With the growth of the city other tunnels and cribs have been built, farther out in the lake, to supply the increasing need.

By 1870 Chicago had become one of the largest cities in the country. In 1830 the settlement at the mouth of the Chicago River had barely twenty houses. Forty years later it had over three hundred thousand inhabitants. The wonderful resources of the upper Mississippi valley had been largely responsible for the city's growth, and the rapid development of the entire West promised Chicago a still greater future.

Then came the fire, and to the homeless people looking across miles of blackened ruins it seemed that Chicago had no future at all. Had not the fire undone the work of forty years?

CLARK STREET IN 1857

The first despair gradually gave way to a more hopeful feeling. Truly the loss was great—the best part of the city lay in ruins. But was not the wealth of the West left, and the harbor and the railroads? These had built up Chicago in the beginning, and they would do so again.

The rebuilding began at once. At first little wooden houses and sheds were constructed to give temporary shelter to the homeless. Help came to the stricken city from all sides. Thousands of carloads of food were sent, and several million dollars were collected in Europe and America.

Two thirds of the city had been built of wood. Now the business blocks, at least, were to be as nearly fireproof as possible. Tall buildings of brick and stone were planned. But such structures are heavy, and if they were built directly on the swampy ground underlying the city, there would be danger of their settling unevenly and possibly toppling over. So layers of steel rails crossing each other were sunk in the ground, and the spaces between them were filled in with concrete. Upon this solid foundation the first skyscrapers of Chicago were built.

To-day concrete caissons are constructed on bed rock, often from 100 to 110 feet below the surface, and upon these rest the steel bases of the modern Chicago skyscrapers.

Work went on quickly. In a year the business section was rebuilt. In three years there was hardly a trace of the fire to be seen in the city, which was larger and more beautiful than before.

After the rebuilding, the water question came up for discussion again. In spite of all that had been done to protect the water supply, the increasing sewage of the city, carried by the river into the lake, at times still made the water unfit to drink. The one way of getting pure water was to prevent the river from flowing into the lake. This could be done only by building a new canal, large and deep enough to change the flow of the river away from the lake. Such a canal was finally completed in 1900, after eight years' work and at a cost of over $75,000,000. It is 28 miles long, 22 feet deep, and 165 feet wide, and it connects the Chicago River with the Des Plaines, a branch of the Illinois River. A large volume of water from Lake Michigan continually flushes this immense drain, carrying the sewage away. The Chicago River no longer flows into the lake, and at last the danger of contaminated drinking-water from this source is past.

BUSY SCENE AT ENTRANCE TO CHICAGO RIVER

One dream of the builders of the canal has not yet been realized. They called it the Chicago Drainage and Ship Canal, in the hope that it might some day be used for shipping purposes as well as for draining the river. This cannot happen, however, till the rivers which it connects are deepened and otherwise improved.

Such has been the history of the growth of Chicago—to-day the greatest railroad center and lake port in the world. It is now the second city in size in America and ranks fourth among the cities of the world.

The port of Chicago owes much to the Chicago River, which has been repeatedly widened, deepened, and straightened. It is to-day one of the world's most important rivers, commercially considered. After extending about one mile westward from the lake, the river divides into two branches, one extending northwest, the other southwest. Many docks have been built along its fifteen miles of navigable channel, and its banks are lined with factories, warehouses, coal yards, and grain elevators.

Courtesy of Central Trust Company of Illinois, Chicago
CHICAGO'S FIRST GRAIN ELEVATOR

These grain elevators are really huge tanks where the grain is stored and kept dry until time to reship it. There are many of them along the river, and they bear witness to the fact that Chicago is the world's greatest grain center.

In 1838 the city received only seventy-eight bushels of wheat. This was brought in by wagons rumbling across the unbroken prairie. Canal boats and railroads have taken the place of the wagons of early days and every year bring hundreds of millions of bushels of grain from the West to the elevators along the Chicago River.

Though much of the grain remains here but a short time and is then shipped to other points, a great quantity is made into flour in the city's many flourishing mills.

A GRAIN ELEVATOR OF TO-DAY

Of equal importance with the Chicago River harbor is the great harbor in South Chicago at the mouth of the Calumet River. Here ships from the Lake Superior region come with immense cargoes of ore. This ore, together with the supply of coal from the near-by Illinois coal fields, has developed the enormous steel industry of South Chicago.

Vast quantities of steel are turned out. Some of this is shipped to foreign countries, but most of it is used in Chicago's many foundries for the making of all kinds of iron and steel articles, in the city's immense farm-tool factories, and in the shipyards for building large steamships.

Close to the water front, too, are extensive lumber yards, for Chicago is the largest lumber market in the United States. Here boats can be seen unloading millions of feet of timber from the great forests of Michigan and Wisconsin, sent to Chicago's lumber yards to be distributed far and wide over the country. Large quantities are also taken to the factories in the city, to be cut and planed and made into doors, window frames, furniture, and practically everything that can be made of wood.

In addition to her inner harbors, Chicago has a fine outer harbor. This is now being enlarged by the extension of its breakwaters, and a $5,000,000 pier is under construction which will be more than half a mile in length and will greatly increase the shipping facilities.

With all these advantages as a shipping point, thousands of vessels come to Chicago every year. Steamers connect it with the states along the Great Lakes and with Canada and the outer world. Its trade with Europe is large, corn and oats being the chief exports. New York alone in America surpasses Chicago in the total value of its commerce.

COURTHOUSE AND CITY HALL

Of Chicago's nearly 2,500,000 inhabitants a large percentage are foreign born, Germans, Poles, Irish, and Jews having settled here in great numbers. About forty languages are spoken, and newspapers are regularly published in ten of them.

With its suburbs, Chicago stretches nearly 30 miles along the shore of Lake Michigan and reaches irregularly inland about 10 miles. The city limits inclose an area of over 191 square miles, which the two branches of the Chicago River cut into three parts, known as the South, West, and North sides. The three divisions of the city are connected by bridges and by tunnels under the river.

Though business is spreading to the West Side, the central business section is still on the South Side and extends from the Chicago River beyond Twenty-sixth Street. Most of the great wholesale and retail houses, banks, theaters, hotels, and public buildings are crowded into this area, and here is the largest department store in the world, in which over 9000 people work. The automobile industry alone occupies nearly all of Michigan Avenue for two miles south of Twelfth Street.

Surrounding this crowded business section are most of the terminals of Chicago's many railroads. These connect the city with New York, Boston, and Philadelphia in the East; with New Orleans, Galveston, and Atlanta in the South; as well as with San Francisco and the other large cities of the West. The courthouse and city hall and the new Northwestern Railway Station are among the city's finest buildings.

Elevated railways and a freight subway have been built in recent years and have somewhat relieved the crowded condition of the streets. This subway, opened in 1905, connects with all the leading business and freight houses, and carries coal, ashes, garbage, luggage, and heavy materials of every kind to and from them.

THE NORTHWESTERN RAILWAY STATION

Five miles southwest of the city hall are the Union Stockyards, the greatest market of any kind in the world, covering about five hundred acres. When Chicago was only a small village, herds of cattle were driven across the prairies to be slaughtered in the little packing houses which grew up along the Chicago River. As the raising of cattle and hogs increased in the state, most of them were sent to the Chicago market, and the stockyards continued to develop until to-day they can hold more than four hundred thousand animals at once.

CHICAGO TO-DAY

Near the yards are the famous packing houses of Chicago, where over two thirds of the cattle, hogs, and sheep received in the city are slaughtered and prepared for shipping. The use, during the last forty years, of refrigerator cars has made possible the sending of dressed meats to far-distant points, and a great increase in Chicago's packing business has resulted.

WHERE CARS ARE MADE

Beef, pork, hams, and bacon from Chicago are eaten in every town and city of America and in many parts of Europe. Other products are lard, soups, beef extracts, soap, candles, and glue, for every bit of the slaughtered animal is turned into use.

THE SKELETON OF A PULLMAN CAR

In a district of South Chicago, known as Pullman, are the shops of the Pullman Palace Car Company and the homes of its army of workmen. Cars of all sorts are manufactured by the Pullman company, which owns and operates the dining and sleeping cars on most American railroads.

THE CAR COMPLETED

MICHIGAN BOULEVARD

There is no one striking residence quarter in Chicago, but beautiful homes are found in many parts of the city. Among the finest streets are Lake Shore Drive, along the lake front on the North Side, and Drexel and Grand avenues.

The parks of Chicago are nearly one hundred in number, the most important being Lincoln, Washington, Humboldt, Garfield, Douglas, and Jackson. These are connected by boulevards, or parkways, forming a great park system, sixty miles in length, which encircles the central part of the city. Lincoln Park borders the lake on the North Side and covers hundreds of acres, its area having been doubled by filling in along the shores of the lake. Jackson Park, on the lake shore of the South Side, was the site of the World's Columbian Exposition, which celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. This park is connected with Washington Park by what is known as the Midway. Grant Park has been recently constructed on made land facing the central business portion of the city. Here is to be located the Field Museum of Natural History.

Bordering the Midway are the fine stone buildings of The University of Chicago, opened in 1892. Its growth, like that of Chicago, has been marvelous. Already it is one of the largest universities of the country.

© The University of Chicago
THE LAW SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

But with all its parks, its boulevards, its splendid water front, and its many other advantages, the people of Chicago are not yet satisfied. To-day they are working to carry out a splendid plan which will give the city more and larger parks and playgrounds, better and wider streets, and a really wonderful harbor. All this is being done “that by properly solving Chicago's problems of transportation, street congestion, recreation, and public health, the city may grow indefinitely in wealth and commerce and hold her position among the great cities of the world.”

CHICAGO
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), over 2,000,000 (2,185,283).

Second city in population.

Second only to New York in value of manufactures.

The leading market in the world for grain and meat products.

A great iron and steel center.

Chief lumber and furniture market of the United States.

Greatest railroad center in the country.

Most important lake port in the country.

Has had a remarkable growth in industries and in population.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Tell what you can of Chicago's early history.

2. What great disaster befell Chicago in 1871?

3. Give five causes for the wonderful growth of Chicago.

4. What part has the Chicago River played in the development of the city?

5. Describe a grain elevator. Why are they necessary in handling grain?

6. Name the advantages which Chicago enjoys on account of its location.

7. What are the great wheat-growing states of the United States?

8. Give reasons for the development of the following industries in Chicago:

9. What are the advantages of water transportation over rail transportation?

10. In what respects is rail transportation better than water transportation?

11. Why was Chicago willing to spend millions of dollars to improve her water supply? How was this done?

12. Where are the workers secured to carry on the great industries of Chicago?

13. Make a table, by measurement of a map of the United States, showing the distance from Chicago to the following places:

14. In what respects does Chicago stand first of American cities, and in what two things does she lead the world?

15. Compare Chicago and New York as to exports and value of commerce.

16. What is the benefit of parks to a city? What has Chicago done to make her parks among the best in this country?

[PHILADELPHIA]

In early days, when there was no United States and our big America was a vast wilderness inhabited mostly by Indians, people who came here were thought very adventuresome and brave.

At that time there lived in England a distinguished admiral who was a great friend of the royal family. The king owed him about $64,000, and at his death this claim was inherited by his son, William Penn. Now William Penn was an ardent Quaker, and because of the persecution of the Quakers in England he decided to found a Quaker colony in another country. King Charles II, who seldom had money to pay his debts, was only too glad to settle Penn's claim by a grant of land in America. To this grant, consisting of 40,000 square miles lying west of the Delaware River, the king gave the name Pennsylvania, meaning “Penn's Woods.” The next year, 1682, William Penn and his Quaker followers entered the Delaware River in the ship Welcome.

Penn believed in honesty and fair play. He was generous enough not to limit his colony to one religion or nationality. All who were honest and industrious were welcome. The laws he made were extremely just, and land was sold to immigrants on very easy terms.

PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS

Soon after his arrival in America, Penn wisely made a treaty with the Indians whose wigwams and hunting grounds were on or near the banks of the Delaware River. Beneath the graceful branches of a great elm he and the Indian chief exchanged wampum belts, signifying peace and friendship. In the center of the belt which Penn received are two figures, one representing an Indian, the other a European, with hands joined in friendship. This belt is still preserved in Philadelphia by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

PENN'S WAMPUM BELT

LOCATION OF PHILADELPHIA

In 1683 Penn laid out in large squares, between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, the beginning of a great city. This city he called Philadelphia, a word which means “brotherly love.” At that time the so-called city had an area of 2 square miles and a population of only 400. To-day Philadelphia has an area of nearly 130 square miles and a population of more than a million and a half. It is America's third city in population, and it ranks third among the manufacturing cities of the United States. Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, a hundred miles from the ocean, but it has all the advantages of a seaport, for the river is deep enough to let great ocean steamers navigate to the city's docks. Philadelphia's easy access to the vast stores of iron, coal, and petroleum, for which Pennsylvania is famous, its location on two tidewater rivers,—the Delaware and the Schuylkill,—and its important railroads, all have helped to make it a great industrial and commercial center. One half of the anthracite coal in the United States is mined in Pennsylvania. Much of it is shipped to Philadelphia and from there by rail and water to many other states and countries.

THE OLD STAGE WHICH JOURNEYED FROM PHILADELPHIA TO PITTSBURGH

Some of the greatest manufacturing plants in the United States, in fact in the world, are in Philadelphia. In certain branches of the textile, or woven-goods, industry Philadelphia is unsurpassed. In the making of woolen carpets she leads the world. This industry goes back to Revolutionary times, when the first yard of carpet woven in the United States came from a Philadelphia loom. In 1791 a local manufacturer made a carpet, adorned with patriotic emblems, for the United States Senate.

Other important industries of the city include the manufacturing of woolen and worsted goods, hosiery and knit goods, rugs, cotton goods, felt hats, silk goods, cordage, and twine and the dyeing and finishing of textiles. The largest lace mill in the world is in Philadelphia.

OLD IRONSIDES

Philadelphia is also noted for the manufacture of iron and steel. The largest single manufactory in Philadelphia is the Baldwin Locomotive Works, which is the greatest of its kind. Pictures of the old Flying Machine, a stagecoach which made trips to New York in 1776, and of Old Ironsides, the first locomotive built by Matthias W. Baldwin in 1832, seem very queer in comparison with the powerful 300-ton locomotives built in Philadelphia to-day. Old Ironsides weighed a little over 4 tons and lacked power to pull a loaded train on wet and slippery rails; hence the following notice which appeared in the newspapers: “The locomotive engine built by Mr. M. W. Baldwin of this city will depart daily when the weather is fair with a train of passenger cars. On rainy days horses will be attached.”

Besides the American railroads using Baldwin locomotives, engines built in this plant are in use in many foreign lands. There is hardly a part of the world to which one can go where a Philadelphia-made locomotive is not to be seen.

THE FIRST TRAIN ON THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD

Philadelphia holds an important place in the construction of high-grade machine tools. She has great rolling mills, foundries, and machine shops, and one of the most famous bridge-building establishments in the world. Her people smile at being called slow; in fourteen weeks a Philadelphia concern made from pig iron a steel bridge a quarter of a mile long, carried it halfway around the world, and set it up over a river in Africa.

Shipbuilding in Philadelphia began with the founding of the colony. It was the first American city to build ships and was also the home of the steamboat. The first boat to be propelled by steam was built by John Fitch in Philadelphia in 1786. This was more than twenty years before Robert Fulton had his first steamboat on the Hudson River. Robert Fulton, who was a Pennsylvanian by birth, also lived at one time in Philadelphia. Shipbuilding, to-day, is one of the city's great industries.

A PRESENT-DAY LOCOMOTIVE

The art of printing has been practiced in Philadelphia since the very beginning of its history. William Bradford, one of the first colonists, published an almanac for the year 1687. This was the first work printed in Philadelphia. Benjamin Franklin entered the printing business in Philadelphia in 1723, and six years later published the Pennsylvania Gazette. This was the second newspaper printed in the colony, the first being the American Weekly Mercury, the first edition of which was printed in Philadelphia in 1719. Both of these papers were very small and would appear very odd alongside of the daily papers of to-day. The first complete edition of the Bible printed in the United States was published by Christopher Saur in Germantown, which is now a part of Philadelphia, in 1743. Philadelphia ranks first among the cities of the United States in the publication of scientific books and law books. One of the large publishing houses of the city now uses over a million dollars' worth of paper each year. It is interesting to know that when the Revolutionary War began there were forty paper mills in and near Philadelphia. At that time, and for many years after, it was the great literary center of the country.

IN FAIRMOUNT PARK

When William Penn founded his Quaker town in the wilderness, he made little provision for parks, as at that time the town was so small and was so surrounded by forests that no parks were needed. But Philadelphia now possesses the largest park in the United States. This is known as Fairmount Park, which covers over three thousand acres of land. Splendid paths and driveways give access to every section of this park. On all sides one sees beautiful landscape gardening, fine old trees, and picturesque streams and bridges. Here is a great open amphitheater where concerts are given during the summer months; here are athletic fields, playgrounds, race courses, and splendid stretches of water for rowing; and here also for many years were located the immense waterworks which pumped the city's water supply from the Schuylkill River.

ONCE THE HOME OF WILLIAM PENN

LOOKING NORTH ON BROAD STREET

Among the famous buildings in the park are Memorial Hall and Horticultural Hall. They were erected at the time of the great Centennial Exhibition, which was held in Philadelphia in 1876 to celebrate the hundredth birthday of American independence. Memorial Hall is now used as an art gallery and city museum. Horticultural Hall contains a magnificent collection of plants and botanical specimens, brought from many different countries.

Another interesting building in Fairmount Park is the little brick house which was once the home of William Penn. It is said to have been the first brick house erected in Philadelphia. It stood on a lot south of Market Street, and between Front and Second streets. Some years ago it was moved from its original site to Fairmount Park, where thousands of people now visit it. Here too, before the Revolutionary War, was the home of Robert Morris, the great American financier, who, during that war, time and again raised money to pay the soldiers of the American army.

Many statues of American heroes ornament the driveways and walks of Fairmount Park. At the Green Street entrance stands one of the finest equestrian statues of Washington in the country. The carved base, which is made of granite and decorated with bronze figures, is approached by thirteen steps, to represent the original thirteen states.

The streets of Philadelphia, while not broad, are well paved, and many of them are bordered by fine old trees. It was William Penn who named many of the streets after trees. The names of several of the streets in the oldest part of the town are recalled in the old refrain:

Market, Arch, Race, and Vine,
Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine.

Philadelphia is a city of homes. Besides its splendid residential suburbs, it has miles of streets lined with neat attractive houses where live the city's busy workmen.

BALLOON VIEW OF FAIRMOUNT PARK AND THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER, 1000 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND

PHILADELPHIA'S WASHINGTON MONUMENT

THE CITY HALL

THE CITY-HALL STATUE OF PENN

Perhaps the city hall is the most striking of the notable buildings. It is a massive structure of marble and granite and stands at the intersection of Broad and Market streets. This immense building covers four and a half acres and is built in the form of a hollow square around an open court. The most attractive feature of the building is the great tower surmounted by an immense statue of William Penn. This lofty tower is nearly 548 feet high and is 90 feet square at its base. It is 67 feet higher than the great Pyramid of Egypt and nearly twice as high as the dome of the Capitol at Washington. The Washington Monument exceeds it in height by but a few feet. The great statue of Penn is as tall as an ordinary three-story house and weighs over 26 tons. It is cast of bronze and was made of 47 pieces so skillfully put together that the closest inspection can scarcely discover the seams. Around the head is a circle of electric lights throwing their brilliant illumination a distance of 30 miles. To one gazing upwards, the light seems a halo of glory about the head of the beloved founder of the city.

Philadelphia has many fine schools, both public and private. The two most noted educational institutions are the University of Pennsylvania and Girard College. The University of Pennsylvania was founded largely through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin. It now occupies more than fifty buildings west of the Schuylkill River and is widely known as a center of learning.

PHILADELPHIA TO-DAY

Girard College was the gift of Stephen Girard, who, from a humble cabin boy, became one of Philadelphia's richest benefactors. The college is a charitable institution devoted to the education of orphan boys, who are admitted to it between the ages of six and ten. Girard left almost his entire fortune of over $7,000,000 for the establishment of this great educational home for poor boys. Two millions of this sum were for the erection of the buildings alone.

THE UNITED STATES MINT

Other prominent educational institutions are the Penn Charter School, chartered by William Penn; the Academy of Fine Arts; The Drexel Institute for the promotion of art, science, and industry; the School of Industrial Art; the School of Design for Women; and several medical colleges which are among the most noted in the country.

OLD CHRIST CHURCH

When the United States became an independent nation it was necessary to have a coinage system of its own. In 1792 a mint was established in Philadelphia to coin money for the United States government. All of our money is not now made in Philadelphia. The paper currency is made in Washington, and there are mints for the coinage of gold, silver, and copper in San Francisco, Denver, and New Orleans as well as in Philadelphia.

A visit to the Philadelphia mint is most interesting. Visitors are conducted through the many rooms of this great money factory and are shown the successive processes through which the gold, silver, nickel, and copper must pass before it becomes money.

INDEPENDENCE HALL

We first see the metal in the form of bars or bricks. In another room we find men at work melting the gold and mixing with it copper and other metals to strengthen it. Coins of pure gold would wear away very rapidly, and so these other metals are added. The prepared metal is cast into long strips, about the width and thickness of the desired coins. In still another room these strips are fed into a machine which punches out round pieces of the size and weight required. These disks are then carefully weighed and inspected, after which they are taken to the coining room to receive the impression of figures and letters which indicates their value. One by one the blank disks are dropped between two steel dies. The upper die bears the picture and lettering which is to appear upon the face of the coin, and the lower, that which is to appear on the reverse side. As the disk lies between them the two dies come together, exerting an enormous pressure upon the cold metal. The pressure is then removed, and the bright disk drops from the machine, stamped with the impression which has changed this piece of metal into a coin of the United States. All coins are made in much the same way.

THE LIBERTY BELL

In our brief visit we see many wonderful machines for counting, weighing, and sorting the thousands of coins which are daily produced in this busy place. At every step we are impressed with the great precautions taken to safeguard the precious materials handled.

The old parts of Philadelphia are even more interesting than the mint, because of their historic associations. Within the distance of a few squares one may visit famous buildings whose very names send thrills of pride through the heart of every good American.

Old Christ Church, whose communion service was given by England's Queen Anne in 1708, is perhaps the most noted of Philadelphia's historic churches. In this old church Benjamin Franklin worshiped for many years, and when he died he was buried in its quaint churchyard. And here too George Washington and John Adams worshiped when Philadelphia was the capital city.

THE HOME OF BETSY ROSS

Carpenters' Hall and Independence Hall ought to be known and remembered by every boy and girl in America. When the Massachusetts colonists held the Boston Tea Party, England undertook to punish Massachusetts by closing her chief port. This meant ruin to Boston. All the English colonists in America were so aroused that they determined to call a meeting of representatives from each colony, to consider the wisest course of action and how to help Massachusetts. It was in Carpenters' Hall that this first Continental Congress met, in September, 1774. The building was erected in 1770 as a meeting place for the house carpenters of Philadelphia—hence its name.

On Chestnut Street stands the old statehouse, which is called Independence Hall because it was the birthplace of our liberty. Here it was that, when all hope of peace between the colonies and England had been given up, the colonial representatives met in 1776 in the Continental Congress and adopted the Declaration of Independence, which declared that England's American colonies should henceforth be free and independent. While the members of Congress discussed the Declaration and its adoption, throngs packed the streets outside, impatiently waiting to know the result. At last the great bell rang out—the signal of the joyous news that the Declaration of Independence had been adopted.

Independence Hall was built to be used as a statehouse for the colony of Pennsylvania. The old building has been kept as nearly as possible in its original condition and is now considered “A National Monument to the Birth of the Republic.” This sacred spot is under the supervision of the Sons of the American Revolution and is used as the home of many historic relics. Among these may be found the Liberty Bell, which hung in the tower of the statehouse for many years. It was later removed from the tower and placed on exhibition in the building. It has made many journeys to exhibitions in various cities, such as New Orleans, Atlanta, Chicago, Charleston, Boston, St. Louis, and San Francisco. The old bell is now shown in a glass case at the main entrance to Independence Hall.

THE FIRST UNITED STATES FLAG

On Arch Street, not far from Independence Hall, is the little house where it is claimed the first American flag was made by Betsy Ross.

For ten years, from 1790 to 1800, Philadelphia was the capital of the United States. In this city Washington and Adams were inaugurated for their second term as president and vice-president, and here Adams was inaugurated president in 1797.

Philadelphia to-day is a great city: great in industry, great in commerce, and great in near-by resources. Every street of the old part of the town is rich in historic memories. William Penn dreamed of a magnificent city, and the City of Brotherly Love is worthy of her founder's dream.

PHILADELPHIA
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), over 1,500,000 (1,549,008).

Third city in rank according to population.

Place of great historic interest:

• Founded by William Penn.
• Home of Benjamin Franklin.
• First Continental Congress met here in 1774.
• Declaration of Independence signed here in 1776.
• Capital of the nation from 1790 to 1800.
• First United States mint located here.

A great industrial and commercial center.

Ranks third in the country as a manufacturing city.

Principal industries:

• Leads the world in the making of woolen carpets.
• Has the largest locomotive works in the United States.
• Manufactures woolen and worsted goods.
• Ranks high in printing and publishing, the refining of sugar, and shipbuilding.

Deep-water communication with the sea.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. When, how, and by whom was the site of Philadelphia acquired?

2. Compare the city of 1683 with that of to-day.

3. How does Philadelphia rank in size and manufactures among the great cities of the United States?

4. Name several advantages which have helped to make the city a great industrial and commercial center.

5. What are the leading exports of the city?

6. Name some of the important industries of Philadelphia.

7. Tell what you can of Philadelphia's great iron and steel works.

8. Tell something of the history and the present importance of printing in Philadelphia.

9. Give some interesting facts about the city's great park.

10. State briefly some of the things which may be seen in a visit to the mint.

11. What events of great historical interest have taken place in Carpenters' Hall and Independence Hall?

[ST. LOUIS]

Soon after Thomas Jefferson became president of the United States, he bought from France the land known as Louisiana for $15,000,000. This sum seemed a great deal of money for a young nation to pay out, but the Louisiana Purchase covered nearly 900,000 square miles and extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. So when one stops to think that the United States secured the absolute control of the Mississippi and more than doubled its former area at a price less than three cents an acre, it is easier to understand why Jefferson bought than why France sold.

When Louisiana became part of the United States in 1803, St. Louis was a straggling frontier village, frequented mostly by boatmen and trappers. It had been established as a trading post back in 1764 by a party of French trappers from New Orleans, and had, from the first, monopolized the fur trade of the upper Mississippi and Missouri River country. Here hunters and trappers brought the spoils of distant forests. Here the surrounding tribes of Indians came to trade with the friendly French. Here countless open boats were loaded with skins and furs and then floated down the Mississippi.

LOUISIANA PURCHASE

Notwithstanding this flourishing trade, the growth of the settlement was slow. In 1803 the population numbered less than one thousand, made up of French trappers and hunters, a few other Europeans and Americans, and a considerable number of Indians, half-breeds, and negro slaves.

But as soon as Louisiana belonged to the United States, a new era began in the West. Emigrants from the Eastern states poured over the Appalachian Mountains. St. Louis lay right in the path of this overland east-to-west travel. From here Lewis and Clark started, in 1804, on their famous exploring trip of nearly two years and a half, up the Missouri River, to find out for the country what Louisiana was like. It was here that emigrants headed for the Oregon country stopped to make final preparations and lay in supplies. The remote trading post of the eighteenth century was suddenly transformed into a wide-awake bustling town.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER BOATS

Furs were now no longer the only article of trade. The newly settled Mississippi valley was producing larger crops each year. Because of the poor roads, overland transportation to the markets on the Atlantic was out of the question, and trade was dependent on the great inland waterways. Early in the century, keel boats and barges carried the products of field and forest down the Mississippi. Then came the arrival of the first steamboat, the real beginning of St. Louis' great prosperity, working wonders for this inland commerce whose growth kept pace with the marvelous development of the rich Middle West.

ST. LOUIS AND HER ILLINOIS SUBURBS

St. Louis, lying on the west bank of the Mississippi, between the mouths of the Ohio and Missouri rivers and not far from the Illinois, became the natural center of this north-and-south river traffic. By 1860 it was the most important shipping point west of the Alleghenies.

THE MUNICIPAL COURT BUILDING

Meanwhile railroad building had begun in the West. Ground was broken in 1850 for St. Louis' first railway, the Missouri Pacific. Other roads were begun during the next two years. In a short time the whole country was covered with a network of railroads, and a change in the methods of transportation followed. The steamboats were unable to compete with their new rivals in speed—a tremendous advantage in carrying passengers and perishable freight—and their former importance quickly grew less.

St. Louis lost nothing by the change. Many of the cross-continent railroads, following the old pioneer trails, met here. To-day more than twenty-five railroads enter the city, connecting it with the remotest parts of the United States as well as with Canada and Mexico.

THE CITY HALL

St. Louis now has about 700,000 inhabitants and occupies nearly 65 square miles of land, which slopes gradually from the water's edge to the plateau that stretches for miles beyond the western limits of the city. The city is laid out in broad straight streets, crossing each other at right angles wherever possible and numbered north and south from Market Street.

The shopping district lies mainly between Broadway,—the fifth street from the river,—Twelfth Street, Pine Street, and Franklin Avenue. The financial center is on Fourth Street and Broadway, while Washington Avenue, between Fourth and Eighteenth streets, is one of the greatest “wholesale rows” in the West.

Besides its public schools—which include a teachers' college—and private schools, St. Louis has two higher institutions of learning, Washington University and St. Louis University.

Among the most important public buildings in the business section are the municipal court building, the city hall, the courthouse, and the public library.

THE NEW CENTRAL LIBRARY

The St. Louis Union Station, used by all railroads entering the city, is one of the largest and finest stations in the world. Pneumatic tubes connect it with the post office and the customhouse, while underground driveways and passages for handling bulky freight, express, and mail matter radiate from it in all directions.

THE UNION STATION

Almost directly west of the business section, on the outskirts of the city, lies Forest Park, the largest of St. Louis' many recreation grounds. It covers more than thirteen hundred acres of field and forest land, left largely in a natural state. Here is the City Art Museum, which was part of the Art Palace of the world's fair held in St. Louis in 1904 to celebrate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase.

The beautiful Missouri Botanical Garden, generally known as Shaw's Garden, is open for the use of the public. Compton Hill Reservoir Park, on the South Side, though small, is one of the finest in the city. Its water tower and basins are a part of the municipal water system, costing more than $30,000,000. The city water is pumped from the Mississippi River and purified as it passes into great settling basins.

Though St. Louis' attractive houses are found almost everywhere outside the strictly business quarters, the real residence section has gradually been growing toward Forest Park, and many of the city's business men have built homes in the suburbs beyond the western limits of the city. One of these suburbs, University City, bids fair to become America's most beautiful residence town.

Unlike most of our large cities, St. Louis has no sharply defined factory district. Its manufacturing establishments are distributed over nearly the whole city. An important part of its manufacturing interests centers on the eastern bank of the Mississippi in the city's Illinois suburbs.

THE ART MUSEUM

The industrial development of these Illinois suburbs was greatly increased by the opening of the Eads Bridge in 1874. Before this time there had been no bridge connection over the Mississippi. Passengers and freight ferries had plied regularly between St. Louis and her suburbs across the river, but there were seasons when floating ice made the river impassable, sometimes cutting off communication between the two shores for days.

The Eads Bridge is 6220 feet long and is so built that the railroad tracks cross it on a level lower than the carriage drives and foot paths. With its completion, communication between opposite sides of the river became as easy as between different parts of the city.

THE EADS BRIDGE

Other bridges have since been built. In 1890 the Merchants Bridge, used solely by railroads, was built across the Mississippi three miles to the north of Eads Bridge, and now there is the McKinley Bridge between the two. In addition to these the city is building a bridge which, when completed, will be open to traffic without toll charges.

SHAW'S GARDEN

A PUBLIC BATH

Among the Illinois suburbs thus brought into closer touch with the western side of the river are East St. Louis,—a growing city of about 75,000,—Venice, Madison, Granite City, and Belleville. Being principally manufacturing communities, these cities contribute in no small degree to St. Louis' importance as an industrial center.

A MISSOURI COAL MINE

St. Louis' importance, however, is mainly due to the city's favorable location at the heart of one of the world's richest river valleys. The vast natural resources of the Middle West are at her command. Raw materials of every kind abound almost at her door. Missouri ranks high as an agricultural and mining state. Its position in the great corn belt makes hog raising a highly profitable industry. The prairies to the north furnish extensive grazing areas for cattle. The Ozark Mountains to the southwest afford excellent pasturage for sheep and yield lumber as well as great quantities of lead, zinc, and other minerals. In addition, the state has large deposits of soft coal, while only the Mississippi separates St. Louis from the unlimited supply of the Illinois coal fields. As a result, the cost of manufacturing is low and the city's many and varied industries thrive. Chief among these is the manufacture of boots and shoes. Though this business is comparatively young in the West, St. Louis already ranks among the three leading footwear-producing cities of the country, turning out over $50,000,000 worth of boots and shoes yearly. Most of these are of the heavier type made for country trade, but the output of finer footwear is steadily increasing.

MAKING SHOES

Next in importance are the tobacco, meat-packing, and malt-liquor industries. St. Louis is one of the leading cities in the country in the manufacture of tobacco. The meat-packing establishments, including those in East St. Louis, hold fourth place among America's great packing centers. Its mammoth breweries lead the country in the output of beer. Flour mills, foundries, and sugar refineries also do an immense business. Street and railroad cars, stoves of all kinds, paints, oils, and white lead are made in scores of factories, while hundreds of other industries flourish in the city, making it one of the greatest workshops in the United States.

MULES IN A STOCKYARD

Important as St. Louis is as a manufacturing city, it is even more noted as a distributing center, its location making it the natural commercial metropolis of the Mississippi valley. It markets not only its own manufactures but products which represent every section of the country. The vast territory to the west and southwest depends almost entirely on St. Louis for its supply of dry goods and groceries. Other staples are boots and shoes, tobacco, hardware, timber, cotton, breadstuffs, cattle, and hogs.

In the handling of furs St. Louis leads the cities of the world. She also holds a high place among the great grain markets. In this country her annual receipts of corn, wheat, and oats are exceeded only by those of Chicago and Minneapolis. Shipments of grain and breadstuffs to Central and South America, Cuba, Great Britain, and Germany constitute the city's leading exports.

As a live-stock market it is no less important. The National Stockyards, located on the Illinois side of the river, contain several hundred acres. Though packing houses and slaughtering houses occupy some of this land, the main part is covered with sheds, pens, and enclosures for the reception and sale of live animals. Millions of cattle, hogs, and sheep are handled here every year. St. Louis also buys and sells hundreds of thousands of horses and mules, being the largest market for draft animals in the world.

Just as the frontier trading post of the eighteenth century grew into the thriving river port of the nineteenth, so the river port of the nineteenth century has developed into one of the leading railroad and commercial centers of the twentieth. And the fourth city of America in size is now St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), nearly 700,000 (687,029).

Fourth city according to population.

Well located; center of the Mississippi valley, between the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio rivers.

Important shipping point by rail and water.

A great railroad center.

The leading market in the world for furs and draft animals.

One of the greatest boot-and-shoe-manufacturing centers.

One of the chief markets in the United States for grain, flour, and live stock.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Why did Jefferson buy the country included in the Louisiana Purchase?

2. Give a brief account of the Louisiana Purchase; from whom purchased, the cost, the territory included.

3. Tell what you know of St. Louis before the Louisiana Purchase.

4. What brought about the sudden and rapid growth of St. Louis after the purchase?

5. What effect did the railroads have upon St. Louis' water transportation? Why?

6. Describe the St. Louis Union Station.

7. What three bridges were built across the Mississippi at St. Louis, and why?

8. To what does St. Louis owe her importance as an industrial center?

9. In what lines does St. Louis lead the world?

10. Name some of the products sent to St. Louis from the neighboring country.

11. What are some of her most important industries?

12. Name some of the things which St. Louis supplies to other sections of the country.

13. In what business has St. Louis held an important place from its beginning?

14. By consulting a map, find what great railroad systems run to St. Louis.

[BOSTON]

Let us take a trip to New England and visit Boston. Boston is New England's chief city in size, in population, in historic interest, and in importance. It is the capital of Massachusetts and the fifth city in size in the United States.

If we were going to visit some far-away cousins whom we had never seen, we should surely want to know something about their age, their appearance, and their habits. Would it not be just as interesting to find out these things about the city we are to see on our journey?

In the early days the Indians called the district where Boston now stands Shawmut, or “living waters.” The first white man to come to Shawmut was William Blackstone, a hermit who made his home on the slope of what is now Beacon Hill. Though Blackstone liked to be alone, he was unselfish. So when he heard that the settlers of a Puritan colony not far away were suffering for want of pure water, he went to their governor, John Winthrop, “acquainted him with the excellent spring of water that was on his land and invited him and his followers thither.” Blackstone's offer was gladly accepted. The Puritans purchased Shawmut from the Indians and in 1630 began their new settlement, which they named Boston in honor of the English town which had been the home of some of their leading men.

MAP OF BOSTON AND ITS VICINITY

Originally Boston was a little irregular peninsula of scarcely 700 acres, entirely cut off from the mainland at high tide. It did not take the colonists long, however, to outgrow these narrow quarters. They soon filled in the marshes and coves with land from the hills. They spread out over two small islands and made them part of Boston. Then, one by one, they took in neighboring settlements. And from this start Boston has grown, until to-day it has an area of about 43 square miles and a population of nearly 700,000.

We must get a clear idea of these various districts of Boston. If not, we shall be puzzled to meet friends from Roxbury or Dorchester and hear them say that they live in Boston. There is Boston proper, the old Boston before it annexed its neighbors; East Boston, comprising two islands in the harbor which joined Boston in 1635 and 1637; then, annexed from time to time, come Roxbury, Dorchester, Charlestown,—the scene of the Battle of Bunker Hill,—West Roxbury, and Brighton; and last, Hyde Park, which, by the vote of its people and the citizens of Boston, joined the city in November, 1911. These have all kept their original names, but have given up their local governments to share Boston's larger privileges and advantages. So remember that when we meet friends from Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dorchester, Brighton, East Boston, South Boston, or Hyde Park, they are all Boston people. The children from these districts would resent it if they were not known as Boston boys and girls just as much as those who live in the very heart of the city.

THE WASHINGTON STREET TUNNEL

While we have been reading all this, our boat has been drawing closer to the city, and now we must gather up our wraps and bags and be ready to start out. We see a very busy harbor, its noisy tugs drawing the sullen-looking coal barges; its graceful schooners loaded to the water's edge with lumber; and its fishing boats with their dirty sails, not attractive but doing the work that has placed Boston first in importance as a fishing port. Crowded steamers and ferryboats pass swiftly by, while huge ocean steamships may be seen poking their noses out from their docks at East Boston and South Boston or heading toward the city with their thousands of eager passengers.

As we hurry along with our fellow travelers we must decide how best to reach our hotel. There are taxicabs and carriages for some; electric cars, both surface and elevated, for the many. Boston has excellent car and train service. The Boston Elevated Railway Company controls most of the car lines in the city as well as in the outlying towns. This makes it possible for us to ride for a nickel an average distance of at least five miles.

A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF BOSTON

A line of elevated trains running across the city connects West Roxbury on the south with Charlestown on the north. Some of these trains pass through the Washington Street tunnel, from which numerous well-lighted, well-ventilated stations lead directly to the shopping and business section of the city. On this elevated road are two huge terminal stations, into which rush countless surface cars, bringing from all points north and south the immense crowds of suburbanites who come to Boston proper each day, to work or on pleasure bent.

Chelsea folks come to the city by ferry or by electric car, while those from East Boston have two ferry lines as well as a tunnel for cars under the harbor.

The city proper has two immense union railroad depots, the North and the South station, where hundreds of local, as well as long-distance, trains leave and arrive each day. The railroads entering Boston are the Boston & Albany, which, by means of the New York Central lines, connects with the West; the Boston & Maine, leading northward to Maine and Canada; and the New York, New Haven & Hartford, which connects by way of New York with various points in the South.

All these transportation advantages have made Boston an excellent place in which to live, as its suburbs afford the benefits of country life while yet they are within a few minutes' ride of a big city.

There are several ways in which we can see Boston. We may climb into one of the great sight-seeing autos and ride from point to point while the man with the megaphone calls our attention to the interesting landmarks and gives their history; we can engage a guide who will take us from place to place; or we can simply follow the directions of our guide book.

THE SOUTH STATION

No trip to Boston is complete without a visit to the State House, or capitol, whose gilded dome is seen glittering in the sunlight by day and sparkling with electric lights by night. It is situated on Beacon Hill, the highest point of land in the city proper. Up to 1811 one peak of the hill was as high as the gilded dome is now, and on its summit a beacon was set up as early as 1634, to warn the people in the surrounding country of approaching disaster. It seems, however, that the beacon was never used, and during the Revolution the British pulled it down and built a fort in its place.

Even if there were no gilded dome on the State House, the building itself is handsome enough to attract attention. It was designed in 1795 by Charles Bulfinch, a famous architect. The front of the building to-day is the historic Bulfinch front. But as Boston grew, so also did the State House, and additions were made in 1853, in 1889, and in 1915, until now we have the impressive building we are about to enter.

DRILLING ON THE COMMON

But stop after climbing the main steps, turn around, and look at the green field before you. This is Boston Common, the famous Boston Common where the people of long ago used to pasture their cows; where the British in the early days of the Revolution set up their fortified camps during the siege of Boston; and where, at the present time, the admiring relatives of the high-school boys assemble yearly to see them go through their military drill. Situated as it is in the very heart of the city, Boston Common is the resting place, the breathing place, for thousands. It is the people's playground. Fireworks, band concerts, public speaking, all prove that its public character has never been lost, and that it is now as much of a Common as it was in 1649, when it was first laid out. By a wise clause in the city charter, this Common cannot be sold or leased without the consent of the citizens.

A CORNER OF THE COMMON, SHOWING THE SHAW MEMORIAL

The Common contains many memorials erected by a grateful people. The most conspicuous is the Army and Navy Monument, which reaches far above the trees. Directly opposite the State House is the Shaw Memorial, a wonderful bronze bas-relief by Saint Gaudens, showing the gallant Colonel Shaw and his colored regiment.

The sight of Shaw's earnest young face amid his dusky followers prepares us for entering Doric Hall in the State House, set apart as a memorial for those who died in their country's cause. We look with awe and reverence on the flags whose worn and tattered edges tell plainly of the struggles of their bearers and defenders.

THE STATE-HOUSE CODFISH

Let us peep into the Senate chamber and into the hall of the House of Representatives with its historic codfish suspended from the ceiling, a reminder of a most humble source of Massachusetts' wealth. We will then climb to the dome and see Boston before a cold east wind sweeps suddenly in, covering the city with fog and making all misty and uncertain. As we reach the highest point, it really seems as if the fog had rolled in, but it is only a fog of smoke from the many chimneys of the city's countless factories.

THE STATE HOUSE

As our eyes get accustomed to the view, the mist seems to roll away, and the city lies before us. That blue line to the east is the harbor, and between us and the harbor is the business section of Boston, the noisy, throbbing heart of a big city. Directly back of us as we stand facing the water is the West End, once a fashionable section where Boston's literary men held court, now a district largely given over to tenements and lodging-houses. To the north and south lie the North and South ends; the former, the oldest of the city and the great foreign district of the present time, where children from many lands have their homes.

BUNKER HILL MONUMENT

WASHINGTON STREET

That broad winding stream of water that we see is the Charles River. Just beyond it to the north is Charlestown, its Bunker Hill Monument towering up for all to see. The city of Cambridge is just across the Charles River to the west, and next to it, skirting the southern bank of the river, is the district of Brighton. South Boston, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Hyde Park, and Dorchester lie toward the south. Among the many islands in the harbor, East Boston is the most crowded and the closest to the city proper. Towards the southwest, between us and the Charles, lies Back Bay, once tidewater but now filled in and made into land. Look around you and notice how the surrounding parts of Boston form a chain about their parent, a chain broken only by Cambridge—the seat of Harvard University—and Brookline,—Massachusetts' wealthiest town,—which refuses to become a city or to join its larger neighbor.

As we leave the State House, a few minutes' walk brings us to the heart of Boston's great shopping district and to Boston's leading business street. You will be glad to know that this street is called neither Main Street nor Broadway, but Washington Street. Originally, part was known as Orange, part as Marlborough, and part as Newbury. But when, at the close of the Revolution, Washington rode through the city at the head of a triumphal procession, the people renamed the street along which he passed, Washington, and so it is called to-day in all its ten miles of length. Washington Street is very narrow in parts, and as it is lined on both sides with some of Boston's largest and finest department stores, it presents a very animated appearance on a week-day afternoon.

THE CITY OF BOSTON

Stop for a moment on busy Newspaper Row. Here a bystander may read the news of the world as it is posted hourly upon the great bulletin boards of the various newspaper offices.

Parallel to Washington Street, and connected with it by many short streets, is Tremont Street, another old historic road. Originally Tremont Street was a path outlined by William Blackstone's cows on their way to pasture; now it is second only to Washington Street in importance.

Washington Street is really the main dividing line between the retail and wholesale parts of the city. The water front is the great wholesale section. Here there is a constant odor of leather in the air, and great heavy wagons laden with hides are continually passing to and from the wharves and stations. When we stop and consider that Boston and the neighboring cities of Brockton and Lynn are among the largest shoe-manufacturing cities in the world, then we do not wonder at the leather we see. It is no vain boast to say that in every quarter of the world may be seen shoes that once, in the form of leather, were carted through the streets of Boston.

BOSTON'S LAND AND WATER CONNECTIONS

What is true of leather is also true of cotton and wool. Lowell, Fall River, and New Bedford are calling for cotton to be made into cloth in their busy mills, while Lawrence is the greatest wool-manufacturing city in the country. Boston, with its harbor and great railroad terminals, is constantly receiving these materials and distributing them to these cities.

The finished cloths often return to Boston to be cut and made into clothes, and an army of men and women cut and sew from day to day on garments for people far distant from Boston as well as for those near home.

One glance at the wharves along Atlantic Avenue and Commercial Street and our glimpse of busy Boston will be ended. Here are wharves and piers jutting out into the harbor, where are boats of every kind from every land. New York alone among American cities outranks Boston in the value of her foreign commerce. From one large steamer thousands of green bananas are being carried. They will be sold to the many fruit dealers, from those whose show windows are visions of beauty, to the Greek or Italian peddler who pushes his hand cart out into the suburbs.

Some of the steamers are already puffing with importance as if to hasten the steps of travelers who are on their way to board ship for different ports in the South, for Nova Scotia and other points north, or perhaps to cross the Atlantic.

Two of the wharves—T Wharf and the new fishing pier—are devoted to the fishing industry. From the banks of Newfoundland and the other splendid fishing grounds along the coast from Cape Cod to Labrador, fishermen are constantly bringing their catches to Boston, their chief market. In addition, Gloucester and other fishing ports re-ship most of the fish brought to them to the Boston market. Is it any wonder that Boston ranks first of all the cities of the United States in the fish trade? In 1910 Boston received and marketed $10,500,000 worth of fish—more than any other American city, and exceeded by only one other port in the world.

A FISHING FLEET

In this neighborhood too is a tablet marking the site of Griffin's Wharf, where the Boston Tea Party of the Revolution took place. We remember how the people of Boston refused to pay the tax on tea; how the shiploads of tea sent from England remained unloaded at the wharf; and how, finally, after an indignation meeting had been held at the Old South Meeting House, a band of men and boys, disguised as Indians, boarded the vessels, ripped open the chests, and emptied all the cargo into the harbor. It was rightly called the Boston Tea Party.

© Dadmun Co. Boston
BOSTON'S NEW CUSTOMHOUSE

OLD NORTH CHURCH

As we are so close to the North End, we may as well go there at once. The North End is the oldest section of Boston. It was here that Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and other patriots had their headquarters during the troublous times before the Revolution. Paul Revere, of whose famous ride we have all read in Longfellow's poem, lived and carried on his business in this very district. If we wish, we can see his home as well as the famous Old North Church, where his friend hung the lanterns warning him of the movements of the British.

But to-day there is little else to remind us of the past. As we cross North Square and see the gesticulating, dark-skinned men, the stout, gayly kerchiefed women in the doorways, and the hordes of dark-eyed children on street and sidewalk, we wonder if by mistake we have not entered some city in southern Europe. To-day the North End of Boston is the great foreign section of the city. Here live the Jews, Italians, and Russians. They tell us that more than one third of the entire population of the city are foreigners.

But when a group of boys rushes toward us, each begging to be our guide to the Old North Church, to Paul Revere's house, or to the famous Copp's Hill Burying Ground,—all for a nickel,—we are sure we are in America and gladly follow our leader through the narrow, crooked streets.

From among the parents of these children come the fruit peddlers, the clothing makers, the street musicians, and the great army of laborers which helps to keep the city in repair.

Are we tired of the noise and confusion of the crowded tenement district? If so, let us go to the broad streets and beautiful parks of the Back Bay, the abode of the wealthy. The Back Bay, as its name suggests, was originally the Back Cove, and where these houses now stand, the waves once danced in glee. But Boston filled in the marshes and coves and laid out fine streets on the newly made land. Here is the famous Beacon Street, and parallel to it is Boston's most beautiful thoroughfare,—Commonwealth Avenue,—two hundred and twenty feet wide, with a parkway running through the center. See the children with their nurses, playing on the grass or roller skating on the broad sidewalks, apparently no happier than the little ones of the North End.

THE NORTH END

PAUL REVERE'S HOUSE

But it is not merely its fine streets and homes that make the Back Bay the handsomest part of the city. In this section are many of Boston's finest public buildings. Come to Copley Square, the most beautiful in the city. Here stands Trinity Church,—Phillips Brooks' church,—a magnificent structure of granite with sandstone trimmings. Phillips Brooks was for a brief year the Protestant Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts. He was loved by those of all denominations. After his death the citizens of Boston united in erecting a splendid memorial, in token of their love for him and their gratitude for his services. The statue is by Augustus Saint Gaudens and is considered one of the greatest works of that great sculptor.

On Copley Square we see also the New Old South Church and the Boston Public Library.

Boston is very proud of her public library, and rightly so, for it is not only one of the finest buildings in Boston but also one of the finest libraries in the country. Look at the magnificent marble staircase, the curiously inlaid floor and ceiling of the entrance hall, the graceful statues, the wonderful paintings, and the fine courtyard with its sparkling fountain. On the floors above are the children's room with its low tables and chairs and rows upon rows of interesting books; Bates Hall, a most attractive reading room; Sargent's mystical paintings; and Edwin A. Abbey's series of paintings, which are called “The Quest of the Holy Grail.”

COMMONWEALTH AVENUE

PHILLIPS BROOKS' MEMORIAL

Besides the main library there are branch libraries or reading rooms in every section of the city. Altogether the Boston Public Library contains over one million volumes, making it the largest circulating library in the United States.

But there are other buildings in the Back Bay which rival those on Copley Square. We should see the Christian Science church with its massive dome; the Boston Opera House; and Symphony Hall, the home of the famous Boston Symphony Orchestra, known the country over.

The Boston Museum of Fine Arts stood originally on Copley Square, but in 1909 a new and magnificent building was opened, farther out in the Back Bay. Not far from the new museum stands the Harvard Medical School, an imposing group of five white-marble buildings.

But now we are tired of buildings, so come into the Public Garden—the gateway to the Back Bay—and while you rest I will tell you about Boston's parks. Sitting in the beautiful Public Garden, it will not be hard for you to believe that the park system of Boston is the finest in the country. The first park was, as we have seen, the Common. For many years the Common was not a place of beauty. Edward Everett Hale spoke of it as a “pasture for cows, a playground for children, a training ground for the militia, a place for beating carpets.” Many changes have taken place on the Common since the old days, but two of the characteristics still remain. Boston Common is still a playground for children, and military drills are still to be seen there from time to time.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

The Common is just across Charles Street from the Public Garden—the second great park to be laid out in Boston. This Public Garden was reclaimed from the marshes, and at present covers about twenty-four and a half acres. It is truly a garden, and during the spring, summer, and fall nearly every species of beautiful flower, plant, and shrub may here be seen—a riot of color and beauty.

But the people of Boston did not stop even with the Public Garden. The city of Boston has, besides, numerous small squares at intervals through the city. She also has vast tracts of rural land, which, unlike the Public Garden, are left to their own wild beauty. Owing to Boston's expanse of water front, it is possible for her to have both inland and ocean parks, where may be found all kinds of open-air sports and recreations.

Some of the most important of these parks are Franklin Park, the Fens, the Arnold Arboretum, Marine Park, and the Charles River Basin. In the Arnold Arboretum, the property of Harvard College, are rare shrubs and trees. Fortunate is the one who can visit it in lilac time, when scores of varieties of lilacs, both white and many shades of violet, scent the air with their delicate perfumes.

The best example of the ocean parkways is Marine Park. There one finds extensive bathhouses, a good beach, lawns, and a long pier extending several hundred feet out into the water. Connected with Marine Park by a long bridge is Castle Island, the site of Fort Independence.

The Charles River Basin is a popular promenade. This river, until recently, showed for many hours of the day the uncovered mud flats of low tide. Now by means of a dam it has been turned into a great fresh-water lake. Cambridge and Boston have laid out parkways on either side of the river, and before long further improvements will make this basin even more attractive.

Through the influence of Boston the surrounding cities and towns have given certain large areas of great natural beauty to form the Metropolitan Park System. This Metropolitan Park System consists of 3 forest reserves of 7000 acres of woodland, 30 miles of river park, 10 miles of seacoast, and 40 miles of connecting parkways.

Two great ocean parks in the system are Revere Beach and Nantasket, both favorite summer resorts, while the most noted inland reservations are the Blue Hills and the Middlesex Fells.

A Roman matron of long ago, when asked to show her jewels, pointed to her sons with pride, saying, “These are my jewels.” And so it is with Boston. She is proud of her history, her fine public buildings, her busy thoroughfares, her parks, her great centers of industry, and her commerce; but most of all, she is proud of her more than ninety thousand school children.

From the earliest times Boston's schools have ranked among the best in the country. The first public school in America was established in Dorchester, and some of the greatest educators, such as Horace Mann and Charles W. Eliot, have been associated with Boston or its suburbs.

© Leon Dadmun, Boston, 1903
THE HARVARD YARD

Boston is the home of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a famous training college in applied sciences; Simmons College for women; the Harvard Medical College; Boston College (Roman Catholic); Boston University; the Normal Art School; the Conservatory of Music; the Emerson School of Oratory; and other schools of high standing. Harvard, the oldest and largest university in the country, has its home in Cambridge. Radcliffe, a college for women, whose pupils receive the same courses of instruction as the students in Harvard, is also in Cambridge. Tufts College is in the neighboring city of Medford, while in the beautiful hill town of Wellesley, a suburb of Boston, is Wellesley College, a woman's college of high rank.

But now, if we hurry, we shall be just in time to see the children flocking in crowds to one of their many playgrounds. Here they find swings and other apparatus for sport; and here they may play tennis, baseball, or football in the spring, summer, and fall. In the winter months they may make use of the ice, which is kept in good condition for the skater. In the various districts, also, are swimming pools and indoor gymnasiums, where old and young meet for recreation as well as for physical training.

Having seen Boston at work and at play, we now ask ourselves where the food comes from to feed this vast multitude. Its meats, flour, and grain of all kinds are brought into its huge freight stations from the West. Its great ocean trade with the ports in the South as well as in Europe and Asia supplies other food necessities and luxuries. New England is a great dairy center, and much of the city's milk, butter, and other dairy products comes to Boston each morning from New Hampshire, Vermont, and western Massachusetts. The purity of the milk is carefully watched, and it is impossible to buy even a pint of milk in anything but a sealed jar.

Boston's drinking-water is equally well guarded. The water, as well as the sewage, is under the control of the Metropolitan Water and Sewage Commission. There is a high-pressure distributing station at Chestnut Hill, which gives power sufficient to force water to the highest of Boston's buildings.

The sewage of the down-town sections of the city is collected in a main drainage system, pumped through a tunnel under Dorchester Bay to Moon Island, held in large reservoirs, and discharged into the water when the tide is going out. The sewage of the outlying districts is conveyed to various places in the harbor and discharged into the water at a depth of thirty or forty feet, where it can be quickly carried out to sea.

Our stay in Boston is now at an end. Not only have we traveled over many miles of her streets and visited her famous State House, her busy wharves, and her interesting playgrounds, but we have reviewed many events of her thrilling history. What of all we have seen or heard is it most important for us to remember? First, that Boston is the fifth city in size in the United States; second, that she is the capital city of Massachusetts; third, that she is the chief trade center of New England; and fourth, that among America's cities she ranks second only to New York in foreign commerce. Then we must not forget the important place she holds in the early history of our country.

As we traveled into Boston, so we will journey out again. And with the last of the great city fading from our view, we call to mind the large-hearted Blackstone and say to ourselves, “Quite a change from the hermit's home on the sunny slope of Beacon Hill.”

BOSTON
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), nearly 700,000 (670,585).

Fifth in rank according to population.

Ranks first among American cities in fish and wool trades.

Chief trade center of New England.

Principal industries (as measured by value of products):

Printing and publishing; manufacture of boots and shoes, of clothing, of foundry and machine-shop products.

Place of great historical interest.

One of the leading educational centers of the United States.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Tell something of the settlement and the early history of Boston.

2. Tell of the Boston Tea Party.

3. Tell the story of the naming of Boston's leading business street.

4. Why is Boston's chief park called the Common?

5. Compare the North End during Revolutionary times with the same district to-day.

6. What is there of interest in Back Bay? in Copley Square?

7. Describe some of the busy scenes which may be observed along the wharves of the city.

8. Tell something about the street railways and other means of transportation.

9. Give a brief description of the Boston Public Library.

10. Tell what you know of Harvard University. What other noted schools are in or near Boston?

11. Name some of the advantages which Boston enjoys on account of her splendid harbor.

12. Give some facts about the commercial importance of Boston.

13. In the manufacture of what three products does Boston, with her neighboring cities, rank high?

14. Why is a codfish suspended in the hall of the House of Representatives in the State House?

[CLEVELAND]

In the days that followed the Revolution, Connecticut claimed certain lands south of Lake Erie. A large part of these she sold to the Connecticut Land Company, who wanted to colonize the country and establish New Connecticut.

It was in 1796 that the Connecticut Land Company sent General Moses Cleaveland west, to survey the land and choose a site for a settlement. After surveying about sixty miles, Cleaveland fixed on a plateau just south of Lake Erie, where the Cuyahoga River runs into the lake. Soon the settlement was laid out with a square and two main streets and was very properly called Cleaveland. The name was spelled with an a, just as Moses Cleaveland spelled his name. There is no a in the city's name to-day, the story being that the extra letter was dropped, and the new spelling adopted, in 1831, through a newspaper's claiming that the a would not fit conveniently into its headline.

At first the new settlement did not prosper. The soil was poor, and commerce along the Ohio River attracted immigrants into the interior. Those that stayed in Cleveland had a hard struggle with fever. The mouth of the Cuyahoga River was frequently choked with sand, making the water in the river's bed stagnant and furnishing a breeding place for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. During the summer and autumn of 1798 affairs were in a desperate condition. Every one in the settlement was miserable. There was no flour, and for two months Nathaniel Doan's boy was the only person strong enough to go to the house of one James Kingsbury, on the highlands back of the town, for corn. This he carried to a gristmill at Newburgh, six miles to the south, and had it ground into meal for the sick.

Besides the suffering caused by fever, there was danger of Indian attacks and the ever-present dread of the wolves and bears which prowled about the settlement, so that no one dared go out at night unarmed, and no door was left without a loaded musket to guard it.

But in spite of the dangers of these early years, the settlers for the most part led a busy, happy life. The women especially had their hands full—keeping their houses clean and neat; doing the cooking and baking; spinning, weaving, cutting out, and sewing the clothes for their families (usually large) and knitting their stockings. Then there were the sick to be visited and nursed, and the neighbors to be helped with their quilting.

When a new settler arrived, all the men would pitch in and help in the “cabin raising,” finishing the work in short order. They often ended up with a jolly dance, though the music was sometimes nothing more than the whistling of the dancers.

For the first ten years Cleveland was only a hamlet of a few dozen people. Still it continued to exist, and in 1815 was incorporated as a village. Another year saw the first bank started, and before long its first newspaper was printed. This paper was supposed to be a weekly, but often appeared only every ten, twelve, or fifteen days, at the convenience of the editor.

Already, in supplying her own needs, Cleveland was laying the foundation for some of her future industries. In fact, soon after the settlement was founded, Nathaniel Doan built a blacksmith shop on what is now Superior Avenue. Though the shop was only a rude affair built of logs, it deserves the name of Cleveland's first manufacturing plant. Here Nathaniel Doan not only shod the few horses which needed his services but made tools as well. A gristmill and sawmill came next, and then began the building of small schooners.

In the early years of the nineteenth century there was practically no way of communicating with the settlements on the Ohio River. And except for an occasional party of French and Indians, there was no means of hearing from Detroit. In 1818, however, regular stage routes began to be opened. One line went to Columbus, one to Norwalk, and one to Painesville. This last route advertised that its stage would leave Cleveland at two on Friday afternoon and would reach Painesville on Saturday morning at eight—a journey which to-day can easily be made by automobile in a little more than an hour. Turnpikes soon displaced these rough stage routes, and over them great six-horse wagons drew freight into Cleveland.

Though all these things helped Cleveland, it was still nothing more than a village—and so primitive a village that when two hundred dollars was voted for improvements, one of the old citizens asked, “What on earth can the trustees find in this village to spend two hundred dollars on?”

CLEVELAND AND HER NEIGHBORS

Finally, came two events which were the making of Cleveland. In 1827 the Ohio Canal was opened from Cleveland to Akron and later to the mouth of the Scioto River, which flows into the Ohio at Portsmouth; and in 1828 a channel was cut through the bar at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River. Consider what this meant to Cleveland. The Ohio Canal connected the village with the Ohio River, thus putting Cleveland in touch with the rich coal, iron, oil, and coke lands of western Pennsylvania. Travelers, too, found the canal boats much better to journey on than the old stagecoaches.

A RIVER SCENE

The deepening of the mouth of the Cuyahoga River gave Cleveland a harbor and a place to build the enormous docks which to-day line the river's shore for the last few miles of its length. A few years earlier an effort to protect lake vessels had been made by building a pier out into the lake near the sand bar. The lake soon tore the pier to pieces, however, and the vessels still had to be hauled over the bar to safety. But with the sand bar cut, boats could sail in and out of the river at their pleasure.

Splendid results followed. The population increased, frame houses gradually came to take the place of log cabins, business greatly improved, and in 1836 Cleveland became a city.

AN ORE STEAMER ENTERING CLEVELAND'S HARBOR

The year 1851 saw a great celebration in Cleveland over the opening of the first railroad. This brought added prosperity to the city. Then, too, iron ore began to arrive by water from the Lake Superior mines. At the same time more and more coal was being received. The manufacturers commenced to appreciate the tremendous advantages of living at a natural meeting place of these two great necessities. Cleveland awoke to a new business activity.

COAL DOCKS

Then came the Civil War, and the manufacturing of iron products for the government crowded Cleveland's factories. During the years of the war the refining of coal oil developed into one of the city's leading industries. It was then that the great Standard Oil Company was organized. Many came to the city, attracted by these growing industries, so that what proved a disastrous period in many sections of our country was really a time of growth for Cleveland.

THE CITY OF CLEVELAND

Soon after the war East Cleveland was annexed to the city, and in 1873 Newburgh too became a part of Cleveland. Then, in 1893, West Cleveland and Brooklyn were taken in, and when Cleveland celebrated the anniversary of its founding in 1896, it had become a city of great importance in the country.

HUGE VIADUCTS SPAN THE VALLEY

At present Cleveland extends for over 14 miles along Lake Erie and covers more than 50 square miles. The larger part of the city lies to the east of the Cuyahoga River. The valley of this river is filled with car tracks, lumber yards, car shops, coal sheds, ore docks, and shipyards. Being in the valley, these are partially hidden from the city. Huge viaducts span the valley and unite the east and west sides of Cleveland.

THE HEART OF THE BUSINESS QUARTER

The heart of the business quarter and the center of the street railway lines is Monumental Square, which lies about a mile from the lake shore. From this square radiate the streets in a fan shape, at every angle from northeast to west. Euclid Avenue is Cleveland's most famous street, having for years enjoyed the reputation of being one of the country's finest avenues. The lower end is taken up with business, but farther out are many splendid residences surrounded by extensive and beautifully kept lawns. Cleveland is called the Forest City, and it is to the old trees which grace its parks and line both sides of Euclid Avenue that it owes its name. Another important business street is Superior Avenue, which runs through the main business portion of the city.

MONUMENTAL SQUARE

LOOKING UP EUCLID AVENUE

Though Cleveland is a beautiful city, its importance really lies in the fact of its occupying just the position that it does. Being on Lake Erie puts it in touch with the copper fields of Michigan, the iron mines of Minnesota and Michigan, and the huge forests along the Great Lakes. Through railroad connections it is also in touch with the coal, oil, and iron supplies of western Pennsylvania and Ohio. Thus, lying in the center of eastern and western commerce, Cleveland has become a great manufacturing center, and the Cleveland district is the largest ore market in the world. Lake vessels bring the ore to Cleveland's enormous docks, where huge machines quickly transfer it to cars waiting to carry it to Pittsburgh and other cities.

Cleveland, also, has several blast furnaces and immense factories of iron and steel supplies. It holds first rank in America for the making of wire and nails. More ships are built in the Cleveland district than anywhere else in the world except in the shipyards on the Clyde River in Scotland. Then, too, Cleveland makes steel bridges and buildings, automobiles, and gas ranges. Quantities of women's clothing are made in Cleveland. Slaughtering and the wholesale meat-packing business are other important industries.

ORE DOCKS

WHEELING & LAKE ERIE BRIDGE

It is a simple matter to ship Cleveland's manufactures in every direction. The main lines of the New York Central and the Nickel Plate pass through Cleveland, and it is a terminal city of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, & St. Louis Railroad,—commonly known as the Big Four,—the Pennsylvania, the Erie, the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railroads. More than this, Cleveland is the center of a vast network of interurban electric railways that carry both passengers and freight and keep the city in hourly communication with the many smaller cities of northern Ohio.

THE UNIVERSITY CIRCLE

Cleveland gets its water supply from Lake Erie through tunnels built out under the lake, which connect with two intake cribs, one of which is five miles from the shore. Natural gas, pumped through large mains from the gas fields of West Virginia, more than 200 miles away, is sold to the people of Cleveland at 30 cents a thousand. The street railway service is among the best in the country, and the fare is lower than in any other large American city.

A DRIVE IN GORDEN PARK

Cleveland has excellent educational advantages. Western Reserve University, founded in 1826, is especially noted for its law and medical schools. In Cleveland, also, are the Case School of Applied Science, the Cleveland School of Art, St. Ignatius College, the Homeopathic Medical College, and the University School. The public schools of the city are among the best.

THE CITY HALL

THE NEW COURTHOUSE

Cleveland has a beautiful park system. The different parks are connected by boulevards, which form a great semicircle through the residence districts. There are also numerous small parks and playgrounds in the more congested districts. A plan for grouping the city's public buildings about a broad parkway is being carried out. Several of the buildings are already completed. When finished, this will be one of the most beautiful and most imposing spectacles in America.

All of these things, added to the great possibilities for occupation offered by the city's many lines of work, have given Cleveland a population of over 560,000. To-day the little settlement of Cleaveland, made in 1796 at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, has become the second of all lake ports and the sixth city in size in the United States.

CLEVELAND
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), over 500,000 (560,663).

Sixth city in rank according to population.

Important manufacturing center.

Center of the largest ore market in the world.

Ranks first in America in making wire and nails.

Great shipbuilding center.

A center of trade in copper, iron, lumber, coal, and oil.

Important railroad center.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Give the history of the name and the settlement of Cleveland.

2. Tell something of the dangers and difficulties of the first settlers of Cleveland.

3. What was Cleveland's first manufacturing plant, and what others did it soon have?

4. What means of communication with other cities did Cleveland have in the early days of its history?

5. To what two events does Cleveland chiefly owe its rapid growth? Why?

6. What two products found a meeting place at Cleveland, and with what results?

7. How did the Civil War help the growth of the city?

8. What benefits does Cleveland derive from its location on Lake Erie?

9. What are the most important industries of the Cleveland district?

10. What railroad facilities has Cleveland to-day?

11. Mention some of the things that make Cleveland a pleasant place in which to live and a good place for business.

[BALTIMORE]

Near the head of Chesapeake Bay stands Baltimore, the largest of our Southern cities and the seventh city in size in the United States.

Because of her importance as a Southern railroad center and her excellent harbor on the largest bay of the Atlantic coast, Baltimore is called “The Gateway to the South.” Great ships from all parts of the world unload their cargoes at her docks and take in return products from nearly every section of the United States.

The railroads bring to Baltimore vast quantities of iron, coal, and grain from the West, and up from the South ships and trains come laden with raw sugar, tobacco, fruits, and vegetables. Here the oysters, fish, and crabs from Chesapeake Bay and the products of the rich farm lands of Maryland and Virginia find a ready market.

Knowing these things, one can surmise what the city's leading industries and exports must be. Baltimore is the world's greatest oyster market, she leads the world in the canning of vegetables and fruits, she is one of the country's largest banana markets, and more corn is exported from this city than from anywhere else in America.

Baltimore is a great sugar-refining center, she leads the world in the making of straw hats, and among her foremost industries are the manufacture of clothing and the making of tobacco goods.

AN OYSTER BOAT

Thanks to the coal and iron she receives, Baltimore builds cars, ships, and almost everything made of iron and steel. Then, too, the city has the largest copper-refining plant in America.

If this story had been written a few years ago, it would tell you that Baltimore's streets were narrow, that miles of them were paved with cobblestones or were not paved at all, and that the city generally was developing very slowly. But to-day we have a quite different Baltimore.

THE BALTIMORE FIRE

On February 7th and 8th, 1904, a great fire swept the business section of the city, destroying $125,000,000 worth of property. While the ruins were still smoldering, the courageous people, refusing all help from outside, began to plan a bigger and better Baltimore.

The work began in the burned part of the city. The narrow down-town streets were widened and paved, and new and better buildings took the place of the burned ones. Most of these new buildings are three or four stories high, though a few tall ones range from ten to sixteen stories. Fortunately three of Baltimore's oldest and most imposing buildings escaped the fire—the post office, the city hall, and the courthouse.

THE BURNED PART OF THE CITY

Two important streets cross this newly built business section—Charles Street, running north and south, and Baltimore Street, running east and west. Baltimore Street is the chief business thoroughfare, and north and south of it are the wholesale, financial, and shipping districts.

PIER 4

ONE OF THE NEW WHARVES

The city owned little wharf property of importance before 1904, but the fire made it possible to buy all the burned district fronting the harbor. This the city purchased and laid out in a wonderful system of public wharves and docks open to the commerce of the world.

THE POST OFFICE

Pier 4, at the foot of Market Place, has been set aside for the use of market boats, and here small crafts bring much of the fruit, vegetables, fish, crabs, and oysters which make the markets of Baltimore among the most attractive in the United States. There are eleven of these markets, and on market days they are a most interesting sight with their busy jostling crowds all eagerly buying or selling.

THE CITY HALL

But these great improvements in the business center and along the water front are only part of the good results which have followed the fire. In past years Baltimore had many miles of open sewers, an unhealthful arrangement which caused much sickness. The very year after the fire, work was begun to do away with this evil, and to-day the city has a sanitary, up-to-date sewer system.

LEXINGTON MARKET

FALLSWAY

McCALL FERRY DAM

Another important work of the city-betterment plan has to do with a stream called Jones Falls, which used to flow in an open channel right through the center of the city. This stream now flows through great concrete tubes, over which is a broad highway running diagonally across the city, all the way from the docks to the railroad terminal. Then, too, the city has a new water system, great enough to supply the entire city with purified water from Gunpowder River. And besides all these a great dam, the third longest in the world, has been built across the Susquehanna River at McCall Ferry, furnishing electric power which lights the streets, runs the cars, and supplies power for many of the city's factories.

From the harbor Baltimore stretches away to the north and west, covering thirty-two square miles. Within the city are green hills and pleasant valleys, and a chain of beautiful parks with many splendid old trees bordering the boulevards which connect them. Two of these parks, Mount Vernon Place and Eutaw Place, are near the center of Baltimore. The former is cross shaped, and here stands the famous monument to George Washington, the first statue erected to his memory in this country. Eutaw Place is a long parkway made beautiful with statuary, flowers, fountains, and winding walks, and on either side stand handsome residences.

Covering seven hundred acres of picturesque rolling land is Druid Hill Park, with its miles of driveways, its ancient oak trees, its athletic grounds, tennis courts, botanical palace, zoo, and a large reservoir lake. The rugged scenery of Gwynn's Falls Park challenges Druid Hill's claim to unequaled beauty. In Patterson Park there is the largest artificial swimming pool in the United States.

THE CITY OF BALTIMORE

Besides its many swimming pools and indoor baths, the city has organized a system of portable baths—small houses which are moved from corner to corner in the crowded sections, supplying hot- and cold-water shower baths to many thousands each year.

THE FIRST WASHINGTON MONUMENT

PATTERSON PARK SWIMMING POOL

Baltimore has won a reputation as an educational center through the splendid equipment and wonderful accomplishments of Johns Hopkins University, which is noted throughout the world, especially for its work along medical lines.

A PORTABLE BATHHOUSE

A JOHNS HOPKINS BUILDING

Goucher College, for women, ranks with the best women's colleges in the South. The Baltimore College of Dental Surgery is the oldest college of its kind in the world. The Walters Art Gallery, and the Peabody Institute with its art gallery, conservatory of music, and library, afford opportunities for the study of art, music, and literature.

With its more than 550,000 inhabitants, Baltimore, like Philadelphia, is a city of homes and is renowned for its good old Southern hospitality.

Way back in 1634, a company of Catholic pilgrims came to America to found a colony where their religion would not be interfered with. King Charles I of England granted to these people a certain territory north of the Potomac River, which he named Maryland in honor of his wife, Mary, who was also a Catholic. The founder of the province was Lord Baltimore, and from the very beginning, settlers of all beliefs were made heartily welcome.

About one hundred years after the planting of this Catholic colony, sixty acres of land on the north side of the Patapsco River was purchased and laid out for a city. To honor the generous-hearted founder of Maryland, the place was named Baltimore.

LOCATION OF BALTIMORE

One of the most thrilling events in Baltimore's history led to the writing of our national song—“The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Francis Scott Key, of Baltimore, was a prisoner on a British man-of-war in 1814, when the British attacked Fort McHenry. Fort McHenry guarded Baltimore, and if the fort fell, the city too must go. All day the English ships fired shot and shell at the fort. During all the night the attack went on. Anxiously Key watched through the darkness. Could the fort hold out against such a terrible bombardment? From time to time, by flashes from bursting bombs, he could see the outlines of the fort. Then came the dawn. In the early morning light Key saw our flag still waving, and in his joy he wrote on the back of an old letter the words of the song that has since become so famous.

A wide thoroughfare which follows the curve of the water front for several miles is named in honor of Francis Scott Key. Key Highway, it is called, and it leads to Fort McHenry, which the War Department has lately given over to the care of the city of Baltimore.

BALTIMORE
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), over 500,000 (558,485).

Seventh city in rank, according to population, in the United States.

Located near the head of Chesapeake Bay.

Has a fine harbor and a splendid dock system.

An important railroad center.

Has a large and growing foreign commerce.

An important manufacturing center.

Ranks first among the cities of the United States as a canning and preserving center.

The world's chief center for the manufacture of straw hats.

An important center for shipping oysters and crabs.

Associated with the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. What advantages of location does Baltimore possess?

2. Why is Baltimore called the gateway to the South?

3. What are the leading exports of this city?

4. In what industries does Baltimore rank first in the United States?

5. What great disaster visited Baltimore in 1904, and how did the people of the city make this great trouble result in a better city?

6. What educational institution has won a splendid reputation for Baltimore?

7. Tell something of the settlement of Maryland and the city of Baltimore.

8. Tell the story of the writing of a famous song of which Baltimore is justly proud.

9. Find by inquiry or by consulting time tables the time required to reach Baltimore from the following places:

[PITTSBURGH]

Pittsburgh and New Orleans—both of vast commercial importance—are connected by one of the greatest water highways in the world. Never were two cities more unlike. New Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi, with its French and its Southern population, might be termed the Paris of our country—this gay, fashionable town, with its fine opera houses, its noted restaurants, and its brilliant Mardi Gras pageants. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, at the head of the Ohio River, in the heart of a famous coal-and-iron region, is well named the “workshop of the world.”

Many years ago, when the governor of Virginia sent George Washington to drive the French from the Ohio valley, there stood, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers unite to form the Ohio River, a small fort which the French called Fort Duquesne. This fort was captured in 1758 by the British and renamed Fort Pitt, in honor of England's great statesman, William Pitt. To-day the place is known as Pittsburgh, and is the center of the most extensive iron works in the United States.

At first the little settlement was important as a break in transportation, for here cargoes were changed from the lighter boats used on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers to the heavier barges on the broad Ohio. Even then Pittsburgh was recognized as a gateway of the West.

Gradually the settlement became a trading center, which soon developed into a big, busy, manufacturing city. Now Pittsburgh has a population of over half a million and is the eighth city in size in the Union.

FORT DUQUESNE

BLOCKHOUSE IN FORT DUQUESNE

In her countless factories, her mammoth steel mills, and her huge foundries, she uses the products of the rich surrounding country as well as an enormous amount of iron ore from the Lake Superior mines.

Although western Pennsylvania too furnishes iron ore, its chief contribution to Pittsburgh is a vast amount of coal, which the city in turn supplies to the world.

THE PITTSBURGH DISTRICT

Pittsburgh leads the world in the manufacture of steel and iron, glassware (including plate and window glass), armor plate, steel cars, air brakes, iron and steel pipe, tin plate, fire brick, coke, sheet steel, white lead, cork wares, electrical machinery, and pickles.

To carry on these important industries, Pittsburgh, the city of McKeesport, the boroughs of Homestead and Braddock, and many other places,—all together known as the Pittsburgh district,—have more than 5000 manufacturing plants and employ over 350,000 people. The amount paid the laborers in these factories in prosperous times is over $1,000,000 a day.

The famous Homestead mills make armor plate for battleships. At Braddock are steel works, where great furnaces turn out enough rails in a year to span the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The great Carnegie Steel Company has its headquarters in the city of Pittsburgh and leads the world in the production of structural steel, steel rails, and armor plate.

FILLING MOLDS WITH MOLTEN METAL

BLAST FURNACES OF THE CARNEGIE STEEL COMPANY

Perhaps your knife blade is made of steel manufactured in one of the huge factories in this busy district. The car tracks of your town, the street-car wheels, and the great locomotives, to say nothing of the heavy steel beams and girders of your fireproof buildings, may all be products of this mighty workshop.

MINERS AT WORK

IN A MODERN COAL MINE

Pittsburgh coal is used all over the country. The near-by mines form a great underground city, whose dark passageways, far below the surface of the earth, are lighted by tiny electric lights. More than fifteen thousand men find employment in this weird city. Day after day the brave miners go down into the mines, never sure that they will see the sunlight again, for many are the perils of mining. Who has not read of the terrible disasters caused by suffocation from fire damp, by flood, the falling of walls, or the explosion of coal dust? Small particles of coal dust are constantly floating in the mines, and much is stirred up by the cars used to carry the coal to the outside world. A tiny spark may ignite this dust and cause it to explode with terrific force. Sometimes even the presence of much oxygen in the air will make the dust explode, tearing down great blocks of coal which bury the poor miners or stop up the passageways so that there is no escape unless the victims are dug out before they die.

THE ENTRANCE TO A COAL MINE

SCENE IN A COAL MINE

But the world must have coal, for, used for our great boilers, it drives our powerful locomotives, sends mighty vessels plowing across the ocean, and supplies the power which turns the wheels of industry, both great and small. Yes, the world must have coal. So Uncle Sam, in pity for the miners who brave these awful dangers, has bought a mine at Bruceton, a short distance from Pittsburgh. There the government is making experiments to find out the causes of explosion, aiming in this way to protect the miners by lessening their dangers.

PITTSBURGH COAL IS SENT ALL OVER THE WORLD

THE CITY OF PITTSBURGH

Much of the coal is made into coke by burning out certain gases in open-air ovens. Thousands of these ovens are located in the Pittsburgh district, and their fires at night illuminate the country for miles. The coke is used as fuel in the steel furnaces of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, and other cities.

THE BUSINESS DISTRICT

A little more than fifty years ago petroleum, or rock oil, was discovered near Pittsburgh, and although oil has since been found in many other places, Pittsburgh is still one of the great centers for this product. Crude petroleum as it comes from the earth is a liquid, formed from the decay of plants and animals long ago buried underground. It is obtained by sinking wells, or pipes, into oil-bearing rock, which is very porous. Sometimes the pipes are sunk a quarter of a mile deep. The average yield is from 50 to 75 barrels a day, and occasionally a pipe well is found which yields as high as 1000 barrels.

Sometimes a well stops flowing. Then the oil must be pumped from the earth or else forced out by the explosion of dynamite. Such a well is spoken of as a “shot well.” When a well is shot, a vast column of oil is thrown into the air, just as water is thrown up in a geyser or hot spring, by the action of gases under ground.

Pittsburgh makes great storage tanks for the oil, as well as apparatus for drilling wells, and supplies these not only to our own country but to every foreign land in which oil is found.

When petroleum is heated it gives off vapors, varying according to the heat. These vapors are then condensed and form many products which are now in every-day use, such as kerosene, gasoline, naphtha, and benzine. Vaseline is what remains in the vats after heating the petroleum. Paraffin is another product. Pittsburgh manufactures all these and supplies them to the world.

The discovery of natural gas about twenty-five years ago, and its use as a fuel, attracted the attention of the world to Pittsburgh as a center of cheap fuel. Natural gas is found in and around oil fields, so it is supposed that the gas and the oil have the same origin. The porous rock in which the gas is found is usually covered with clay rock, or shale, which prevents the gas from escaping. Natural gas, like petroleum, is obtained by sinking pipes. When the gas is reached, it rushes out with great force. Large quantities of it were formerly used in Pittsburgh's glass factories and iron works, but its greatest use to-day is for lighting and heating.

WOOD STREET AT SIXTH AVENUE IN 1902

The city of Pittsburgh stretches for 7 miles along the Allegheny, about the same distance on the Monongahela, and entirely covers the space between. The city of Allegheny, across the Allegheny River, has recently been annexed, thus giving Pittsburgh an area of 38 square miles. The two cities, with the river between, remind us of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The city's water supply is taken from the Allegheny River and is purified in the largest single filtration plant in the world.

The main business section covers the V-shaped space between the two rivers—known as the Point—and extends into the streets further back. Still beyond are heights upon which are many beautiful parks, fine residences, and splendid public buildings, including the Carnegie Museum, Library, and Technical Schools, and the buildings of Pittsburgh University.

WOOD STREET AT SIXTH AVENUE IN 1915

Though the population of the “Steel City” was at first mainly Scotch-Irish, it now includes citizens from almost every nation in Europe. The workmen in its factories are of at least thirty nationalities. Side by side stand English, Germans, Welsh, Irish, Scotch, Negroes, Jews, Italians, Syrians, Swedes, Greeks, Slavs, Poles, and Hungarians.

In one section of the city there is a distinct German center, whose inhabitants speak German and have German newspapers. Another section has received the name of Little Italy because of the number of Italians who have come there to live. Six papers are published for these people in their own tongue. In Little Italy are many of the fruit stands and market places which in this country seem to furnish a favorite employment for the sons of Italy.

A FOREIGN QUARTER

In still another section, which is called the Ghetto, live the Jews, whose conversation is largely carried on in Yiddish, and whose newspapers are printed in that language. All of these foreign-born people have adopted the dress of American citizens, and their descendants will soon become Americanized in manners and language. To-day their foreign ways make them the more interesting.

But the laborers are by no means the only inhabitants of Pittsburgh. There are many wealthy residents, whose palatial homes, built beyond the reach of the soot and smoke, far away from the noises of the great business thoroughfares, are in great contrast to the workmen's simple homes near the furnaces.

AN INCLINED PLANE

Pittsburgh can boast of many great men. It is the home of Andrew Carnegie, whose reputation for wealth and benevolence is world wide. He it was who conceived the idea of founding free libraries in different cities, they in turn to support these libraries by giving an annual sum for that purpose. His first offer was to his own city. In 1881 he proposed to give Pittsburgh $250,000 for a free public library if the city would set apart $15,000 each year for its care. The offer was refused, and the library was given to Allegheny instead. Later Mr. Carnegie gave Pittsburgh an Institute and Library combined, for the support of which the city gives $200,000 each year. The Carnegie Institute is a massive and beautiful building in Schenley Park. It covers 5 acres of land and is filled with treasures of art and literature. To-day there are nine Carnegie libraries in Pittsburgh, containing over 360,000 volumes.

George Westinghouse was another Pittsburgh capitalist. His early days were spent in making agricultural implements in Schenectady. He was called Lazy George because he was always making pieces of machinery to save doing work with his hands. Later, by his invention of air brakes for trains, he became rich. Choosing Pittsburgh as his home, he established in and near the city the great Westinghouse Electric Company. It was Mr. Westinghouse who gave to Pittsburgh natural gas, conveying it through forty miles of pipe from Murrysville.

Towering above Pittsburgh are high hills, which are reached from the business districts by inclined planes. Passengers and freight are carried up the inclines in cable cars. Up the steepest of these planes, the Monongahela, whose summit is four hundred feet above the river, the railroad runs through a tunnel and brings the passengers out upon a high bluff.

FROM THE HEIGHTS ABOVE THE CITY

From the heights above the city one views the surrounding country—a wonderful panorama of hills and valleys, with the three great rivers, spanned by seventeen splendid bridges, stretching away in the distance. In every direction are towns called “little Pittsburghs,” where live the workers engaged in the gigantic industries of the Pittsburgh district. And looking down, one sees the Point—the center of this great city, the heart of the “workshop of the world.”

PITTSBURGH
FACTS TO REMEMBER

Population (1910), over half a million (533,905).

Eighth city in rank, according to population.

Has the largest structural-steel plant in the world.

Has the largest glass-manufacturing plant in the United States.

Has the largest commercial coal plant in the United States.

Has the largest pickling plant in the world.

Has the largest electrical manufacturing plant in the world.

Leads the world in the manufacture of iron, steel, glass, electrical machinery, steel cars, tin plate, air brakes, fire brick, white lead, pickles, and cork wares.

Place of great historical interest in connection with the development of the West.

One of the foremost commercial distributing centers.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Compare Pittsburgh with New Orleans in location and in interests.

2. Tell how Fort Pitt grew into the great city of Pittsburgh and give two causes for its growth.

3. Where does Pittsburgh get her iron ore, coal, and petroleum?

4. In what manufactures does the city lead the world?

5. What great advantages does its location on the Ohio River give Pittsburgh?

6. Where are her great steel works, and what do they manufacture?

7. Describe the mine cities and the miners. Tell of their dangers and how these are to be lessened.

8. How is petroleum obtained? What products in daily use are made from it?

9. Give some facts about natural gas and its use in Pittsburgh.

10. Why is Pittsburgh called the “workshop of the world”?

11. Name two famous men of Pittsburgh and tell what they have done for the city and for the world.

12. Examine a map and find what shipping ports are within easy access of Pittsburgh.

13. Find by what route ore and other material shipped by way of the Great Lakes reach Pittsburgh.

[DETROIT]

In population, Detroit is the ninth city of the United States.

In the value of its manufactured products, it is fifth.

In the value of its exports, it is the leading port on the Canadian border.

With these facts in mind it will be interesting to learn something of the history of Detroit; something of the goods it manufactures and the reasons for its growth and prosperity.

During the years when the French governed Canada, manufacturing and agriculture played a very small part in their affairs. Their business men were chiefly interested in the fur trade; their governors were interested mainly in extending the territory over which floated the banner of their king; and the teaching of Christianity to the hordes of Indians who inhabited the country seemed of the greatest importance to their priests and missionaries.

So, because it served the purpose of each, all three classes—the fur traders, the crown officers, and the missionaries—worked hand in hand in exploring and in penetrating the wilderness in every direction. They suffered every hardship, endured every privation, and very often fell victims to the cruelty of the savages.

THE GREAT LAKES

In those days of French rule, railroads were unheard of, and wagon roads were almost as scarce. Travel was sometimes through the woods, along the trails made by the Indians; but usually it was by the water courses, over which the Indian canoes carried furs to be traded for the goods of the French.

Now if you will look at a map which shows the Canadian border of the United States and follow the course of the Great Lakes, you will see that at four places their broad waters narrow into rivers or straits. These places are first, the Niagara River; second, where the waters of Lake Huron pass into Lake Erie; third, at the Sault Ste. Marie; and fourth, at the Straits of Mackinac.

Between the East and the West, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River formed the main artery of travel. To control the narrow rivers and straits that connect the Great Lakes was to control the travel over them, and as the French extended their rule from Quebec to the West, they fortified these narrow places one by one.

Fort Niagara was built at the mouth of the Niagara River. Then on July 24, 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac landed on the banks of the Detroit River and began the work of building a palisade fort, almost where the river widens into Lake Saint Clair.

Cadillac thought that at Fort Detroit he had found one of the garden spots of the country. In the pine forests of the Michigan peninsula game of every sort abounded, and their skins enriched alike the Indians and the French. The waters of Lake Saint Clair swarmed with wild fowl. In the woods wild grapes grew in profusion, and the rich lands bordering both sides of the river assured plentiful crops, depending only upon the industry of those who tilled the soil. However, in spite of his enthusiasm over the beauty of the site, Cadillac proceeded to lay out a very ugly little town with rude dwellings huddled along narrow muddy streets.

Such as it was, Detroit remained under French rule for fifty-nine years, becoming one of the most prosperous of the French outposts. The Indians were, for the most part, friendly with the French, and in 1760 the place had a population of 2500, which made it of great importance in the sparsely settled West.

Then came the years of the French and Indian wars, and finally the French, having lost Quebec, were obliged to surrender to the English. So in November, 1760, Detroit was given up to Major Robert Rogers in command of a detachment of British regulars and American militia.

The English were not allowed to remain long in undisturbed possession of their new outpost. Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas and one of the craftiest of all Indian warriors, was friendly to the French. In 1763, through his immense influence with all the Western tribes, he organized a conspiracy to drive the English from the territory which they had won with such difficulty. Detroit was one of the first places to be attacked. The siege lasted several months, but in spite of the cruelty and cunning of the attack, the garrison held out until at last relief came. Thus by their bravery they did much to prevent the success of Pontiac's Conspiracy, as the uprising is called.

Then came the Revolution. At its close, the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. By the terms of this treaty, Detroit, together with the other British outposts in the West, became the property of the United States. However, it was not until 1796 that the place was actually occupied by American troops.

Sixteen years later Detroit again passed into the possession of the British. This was during the war of 1812 and followed the defeat of General William Hull's ill-fated expedition into Canada. Falling back to Detroit, Hull was attacked, and surrendered to the British after a half-hearted resistance.

A little more than a year later, however, in October, 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry won the famous battle of Lake Erie. This gave the Americans control of the lake, and the British soon abandoned Detroit, which has since remained in the possession of the United States.

Detroit had prospered but little since 1760. Its inhabitants were for the most part easy-going Frenchmen. They were not suited to the strenuous work of city building. Detroit, instead of growing larger, was becoming smaller; and when, in 1820, the United States took a census of the place, it had but 1442 inhabitants as against the 2500 that Major Rogers found in 1760.