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91-411: From the 1880s until well into the 1950s, virtually all long-distance transportation of United States Mail was performed by the railroads. Specially equipped railway post office (RPO) cars were a part of most passenger trains, the cars staffed by highly trained railway postal clerks who sorted mail as the train sped along its route. The growth of this mail distribution network paralleled the expansion of

182-466: A 1914 Mail RPO, that is classed as a "combine" car, having sections for the RPO, Railway Express Agency and twenty seats for paying passengers. Currently, it is the only Railway Post Office car known to be operational and currently certified for operation on commercial rail. The Osceola and St Croix Valley Railway (division of MTM/reporting mark MNTX) operates the car as part of its tour line, actually "catching

273-403: A Democrat, was elected in 1955, in the era of machine politics . In 1956, the city conducted its last major expansion when it annexed the land under O'Hare airport, including a small portion of DuPage County. By the 1960s, white residents in several neighborhoods left the city for the suburban areas – in many American cities, a process known as white flight – as Blacks continued to move beyond

364-605: A buffer force of at least 400,000 pounds. This requirement was doubled to 800,000 pounds in a 1938 revision of the standards. The requirements were again strengthened in 1945 with specifications that precluded the use of aluminium for framing and major structural components. The 1945 revisions also included a requirement for end posts to prevent telescoping in the event of a collision. Railway car manufacturers adopted these requirements and carried them through to all other models of passenger cars that they built. The 800,000-lb buffer load and end post requirements were later adopted by

455-693: A clerk scoring only 96% accuracy would likely receive a warning from the Railway Mail Service division superintendent. Interurban and Streetcar systems were also known to operate RPOs. The Boston Elevated Railway car was noted for making circuits of the city to pick up mail. In the United States, RPO cars (also known as mail cars or postal cars) were equipped and staffed to handle most back-end postal processing functions. First class mail, magazines and newspapers were all sorted, cancelled when necessary, and dispatched to post offices in towns along

546-421: A converted route agent's car on runs between Chicago and Clinton, Iowa. RPO car interiors, which at first consisted of solid wood furniture and fixtures, were soon redesigned to support their new purpose. In 1879, an RMS employee named Charles R. Harrison developed a new set of fixtures that soon gained widespread use. Harrison's design consisted of hinged, cast-iron fixtures that could be unfolded and set up in

637-452: A device ( U.S. patent 61,584 ) was awarded to L. F. Ward of Elyria, Ohio, on January 29, 1867. This was about a year after apparatus for picking up and setting down mailbags without stopping was installed for equivalent UK TPOs at Slough and Maidenhead, having first been patented in UK in 1838 by Nathaniel Worsdell. With the train often operating at 70 mph or more, a postal clerk would have

728-480: A hand-to-hand receipt for registered mail transferred between connecting railway post office routes. Many of the transfer offices had a unique postmark to cancel the mail which was sorted by the office, and these cancellations are still collected by philatelists and postal historians. Transfer offices were used by RPO clerks as a point to read job bulletins (order books maintained by the Chief Clerk) before starting on

819-486: A heart attack soon after. Washington was succeeded by 6th ward alderperson Eugene Sawyer , who was elected by the Chicago City Council and served until a special election. Richard M. Daley , son of Richard J. Daley, was elected in 1989. His accomplishments included improvements to parks and creating incentives for sustainable development , as well as closing Meigs Field in the middle of the night and destroying

910-494: A local post office, with the cancel giving the train number, endpoint cities of the RPO route, the date, and RMS Railway Mail Service or PTS Postal Transportation Service between the killer bars . Collecting such cancellations is a pastime of many philatelists and postal history researchers. The Railway Mail Service organization within the Post Office Department existed between 1864 and September 30, 1948. It

1001-428: A mail slot on the side of the car, so that mail could actually be deposited in the car, much like using the corner mail box, while the train was stopped at a station. Those desiring the fastest delivery would bring their letters to the train station for dispatch on the RPO, knowing that overnight delivery would be virtually assured. The mail handled in this manner received a cancellation just as if it had been mailed at

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1092-660: A model for the new field of social work . During the 1870s and 1880s, Chicago attained national stature as the leader in the movement to improve public health. City laws and later, state laws that upgraded standards for the medical profession and fought urban epidemics of cholera , smallpox , and yellow fever were both passed and enforced. These laws became templates for public health reform in other cities and states. The city established many large, well-landscaped municipal parks , which also included public sanitation facilities. The chief advocate for improving public health in Chicago

1183-472: A new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River , and subsequently into Lake Michigan , polluting the city's primary freshwater source. The city responded by tunneling two miles (3.2 km) out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs . In 1900,

1274-556: A number of configurations to hold mail pouches, racks and a sorting table as needed for specific routes. The fixtures were also designed so they could be folded away completely to provide a wholly open space to carry general baggage and express shipments as needed by the railroads. Harrison followed through with manufacturing his design at a factory he opened in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin in 1881. The July 1, 1862, Pacific Railroad Act signed by President Lincoln established government funding for

1365-420: A pouch of mail ready to be dispatched as the train passed the station. In a co-ordinated movement, the catcher arm was swung out to catch the hanging mail pouch while the clerk stood in the open doorway. The mail pouch had a strap around the middle, and the strap was tightened in preparation for pickup with an approximately equivalent weight of mail in either end of the pouch to prevent the heavier end from pulling

1456-422: A run, and as a location to finish paperwork at the end of a run. In 1951, almost 200 transfer offices were maintained across the country. Larger cities with multiple railroad stations often had several different transfer offices, one at each station. As mail transportation by rail declined in the 1950s, smaller transfer offices were closed. With the continued erosion of rail mail operations, and particularly after

1547-457: A separate compartment) express and baggage. Railway mail clerks were subjected to stringent training and regular testing of details regarding their handling of the mail. On a given RPO route, each clerk was expected to know not only the post offices and rail junctions along the route, but also specific local delivery details within each of the larger cities served by the route. Periodic testing demanded both accuracy and speed in sorting mail, and

1638-411: A somewhat uniform color scheme regardless of the railroad that owned or operated them. Most were painted white with trim in either buff, red or blue, which made the cars stand out from the other cars. By the 1890s, this practice had waned as railroads painted their RPO cars to match the rest of their passenger equipment. One RPO car that was displayed at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago

1729-415: Is distinguished from the 1862 operation because mail was sorted to and received from each post office along the route, as well as major post offices beyond the route's end-points. George B. Armstrong, assistant postmaster at Chicago, originally came up with the idea of having mail processed and distributed while the mail was on board, en route in mail cars. With the assistance of Schuyler Colfax , Speaker of

1820-407: Is known to botanists as Allium tricoccum and known more commonly as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as " Checagou " was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel , in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew profusely in the area. According to his diary of late September 1687: ... when we arrived at

1911-430: Is one of the last known examples of the early white color scheme. As the development of passenger cars progressed, so too did the development of RPO cars. The first plans for RPO car designs were based on light baggage car frames and bodies, which sometimes resulted in catastrophe for RMS employees when the trains were involved in accidents. From 1900 to 1906 some 70 workers were killed in train wrecks while on duty in

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2002-554: Is routinely ranked among the world's top six busiest airports by passenger traffic , and the region is also the nation's railroad hub. The Chicago area has one of the highest gross domestic products (GDP) of any urban region in the world, generating $ 689 billion in 2018. Chicago's economy is diverse , with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. Chicago is a major destination for tourism , including visitors to its cultural institutions , and Lake Michigan beaches . Chicago's culture has contributed much to

2093-597: Is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States . With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 census , it is the third-most populous city in the United States after New York City and Los Angeles . As the seat of Cook County , the second-most populous county in the U.S., Chicago is the center of the Chicago metropolitan area , often colloquially called "Chicagoland" and home to 9.6 million residents. Located on

2184-508: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in either 1834 or 1835. The United States Congress officially designated all railroads as official postal routes on July 7, 1838. Similar services were introduced on Canadian railroads in 1859. The railway post office was introduced in the United States on July 28, 1862, using converted baggage cars on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (which also delivered

2275-473: The Black Belt . While home loan discriminatory redlining against blacks continued, the real estate industry practiced what became known as blockbusting , completely changing the racial composition of whole neighborhoods. Structural changes in industry, such as globalization and job outsourcing, caused heavy job losses for lower-skilled workers. At its peak during the 1960s, some 250,000 workers were employed in

2366-699: The Calumet River in the industrial far South Side—flow either entirely or partially through the city. Chicago's history and economy are closely tied to its proximity to Lake Michigan. While the Chicago River historically handled much of the region's waterborne cargo, today's huge lake freighters use the city's Lake Calumet Harbor on the South Side. The lake also provides another positive effect: moderating Chicago's climate, making waterfront neighborhoods slightly warmer in winter and cooler in summer. When Chicago

2457-548: The Chicago School , the development of the City Beautiful movement , and the steel-framed skyscraper . Chicago is an international hub for finance, culture , commerce, industry, education, technology, telecommunications, and transportation . It has the largest and most diverse finance derivatives market in the world, generating 20% of all volume in commodities and financial futures alone. O'Hare International Airport

2548-580: The Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad. Manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy . The Chicago Board of Trade (established 1848) listed the first-ever standardized "exchange-traded" forward contracts, which were called futures contracts . In

2639-537: The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) for all passenger MU locomotives as of April 1, 1956. They were extended to all passenger cars and locomotives in 1999 by the USDOT . An interesting feature of most RPO cars was a hook that could be used to snatch a leather or canvas pouch of outgoing mail hanging on a track-side mail crane at smaller towns where the train did not stop. The first US patent for such

2730-525: The Jefferson Township , which now makes up most of Chicago's Northwest Side . The desire to join the city was driven by municipal services that the city could provide its residents. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States . Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in

2821-503: The Miami , Sauk and Meskwaki peoples in this region. The first known permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable . Du Sable was of African descent, perhaps born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and established the settlement in the 1780s. He is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago." In 1795, following the victory of the new United States in

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2912-578: The New Negro Movement , in art, literature, and music. Continuing racial tensions and violence, such as the Chicago race riot of 1919 , also occurred. The ratification of the 18th amendment to the Constitution in 1919 made the production and sale (including exportation) of alcoholic beverages illegal in the United States. This ushered in the beginning of what is known as the gangster era, a time that roughly spans from 1919 until 1933 when Prohibition

3003-803: The Northwest Indian War , an area that was to be part of Chicago was turned over to the U.S. for a military post by native tribes in accordance with the Treaty of Greenville . In 1803, the U.S. Army constructed Fort Dearborn , which was destroyed during the War of 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn by the Potawatomi before being later rebuilt. After the War of 1812, the Ottawa , Ojibwe , and Potawatomi tribes ceded additional land to

3094-463: The University of Chicago , Northwestern University , and the University of Illinois Chicago , among other institutions of learning . Professional sports in Chicago include all major professional leagues , including two Major League Baseball teams. The name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami–Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion ; it

3185-663: The Washington and Jackson Parks. During World War I and the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States . Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. This Great Migration had an immense cultural impact, called the Chicago Black Renaissance , part of

3276-490: The 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub, and by 1910 over 20 railroads operated passenger service out of six different downtown terminals. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones . This system for telling time spread throughout the continent. In 1893, Chicago hosted the World's Columbian Exposition on former marshland at

3367-477: The 1850s, Chicago gained national political prominence as the home of Senator Stephen Douglas , the champion of the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the "popular sovereignty" approach to the issue of the spread of slavery. These issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln , to the national stage. Lincoln was nominated in Chicago for U.S. president at the 1860 Republican National Convention , which

3458-681: The 57th mayor of Chicago. Chicago is located in northeastern Illinois on the southwestern shores of freshwater Lake Michigan. It is the principal city in the Chicago Metropolitan Area , situated in both the Midwestern United States and the Great Lakes region . The city rests on a continental divide at the site of the Chicago Portage, connecting the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes watersheds . In addition to it lying beside Lake Michigan, two rivers—the Chicago River in downtown and

3549-486: The American continent. By the 1880s, railway post office routes were operating on the vast majority of passenger trains in the United States. A complex network of interconnected routes allowed mail to be transported and delivered in a remarkably short time. As many as a dozen clerks might work in a single RPO car, although fewer would be required if part of the car was used for transport of previously sorted mail or (often in

3640-455: The Chicago River were devastated; by 1933 over 50% of industrial jobs in the city had been lost, and unemployment rates amongst blacks and Mexicans in the city were over 40%. The Republican political machine in Chicago was utterly destroyed by the economic crisis, and every mayor since 1931 has been a Democrat . From 1928 to 1933, the city witnessed a tax revolt, and the city was unable to meet payroll or provide relief efforts. The fiscal crisis

3731-520: The House at the time, and A. N. Zevely , Third Assistant Postmaster General, Armstrong was authorized to test his ideas. In 1869, the Railway Mail Service (RMS), headed by George B. Armstrong , was officially inaugurated to handle the transportation and sorting of mail aboard trains. Armstrong was promoted from a supervisory position in the Chicago post office following his experiments in 1864 with

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3822-527: The Mississippi River. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6.4 km) long and 1-mile (1.6 km) wide, a large section of the city at the time. Much of the city, including railroads and stockyards , survived intact, and from the ruins of the previous wooden structures arose more modern constructions of steel and stone. These set a precedent for worldwide construction. During its rebuilding period, Chicago constructed

3913-446: The POD began experimenting with a highway version of the RPO to serve the same purposes along routes where passenger train service was not available. These highway post office (HPO) vehicles were initially intended to supplement RPO service, but in the 1950s and 1960s, HPOs often replaced railway post office cars after passenger train service was discontinued. The last interurban RPO service

4004-539: The POD cancelled all "mail by rail" contracts, electing to move all first class mail via air and other classes by road (truck) transport. This announcement had a devastating effect on passenger train revenues; the Santa Fe, for example, lost $ 35 million (US) in annual business, and led directly to the ending of many passenger rail routes. After 113 years of railway post office operation, the last surviving railway post office running on rails between New York and Washington, D.C.

4095-489: The RPOs, leading to demands for stronger steel cars. The RMS developed its first standards for car design in 1891 to address some of these issues. In 1912, the Railway Mail Service developed a set of strength requirements for new cars in an effort to push the car building companies into using steel for the cars' major structural components and underframes. The core of the requirements was that each car should be able to withstand

4186-562: The South arrived in the city to work in the steel mills, railroads, and shipping yards. On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project . This led to the creation of the atomic bomb by the United States, which it used in World War II in 1945. Mayor Richard J. Daley ,

4277-612: The United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis . The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and sent west of the Mississippi River as part of the federal policy of Indian removal . On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. On June 15, 1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as Receiver of Public Monies. The City of Chicago

4368-775: The United States of foreign parentage. Germans , Irish , Poles , Swedes , and Czechs made up nearly two-thirds of the foreign-born population (by 1900, whites were 98.1% of the city's population). Labor conflicts followed the industrial boom and the rapid expansion of the labor pool, including the Haymarket affair on May 4, 1886, and in 1894 the Pullman Strike . Anarchist and socialist groups played prominent roles in creating very large and highly organized labor actions. Concern for social problems among Chicago's immigrant poor led Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr to found Hull House in 1889. Programs that were developed there became

4459-652: The United States, following which it will operate in regular service as part of the Museum operations out of Osceola, WI. Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA has RPO car #1100, Louisville & Nashville, on display. It is an all- steel car built in 1914 by the American Car and Foundry Company . The Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad operates a post office car and all mail posted there gets an official USPS OC&T postmark. Chicago, Illinois Chicago

4550-549: The cars are kept in operational condition. In 1933, Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad rebuilt one of its baggage cars into a replica of the first RPOs that were used on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in 1862. The railroad displayed the car in several cities along the railroad; it now resides at the Patee House Museum in St. Joseph, Missouri . The Minnesota Transportation Museum (MTM) maintains Northern Pacific #1102,

4641-553: The city include the central business district, called the Loop , and the North, South , and West Sides . The three sides of the city are represented on the Flag of Chicago by three horizontal white stripes. The North Side is the most-densely-populated residential section of the city, and many high-rises are located on this side of the city along the lakefront. The South Side is the largest section of

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4732-529: The city was affected by a series of tenant rent strikes , which lead to the formation of the Chicago Tenants Protective association, passage of the Kessenger tenant laws, and of a heat ordinance that legally required flats to be kept above 68 °F during winter months by landlords. Chicago was the first American city to have a homosexual-rights organization. The organization, formed in 1924,

4823-415: The city's first African American woman mayor and its first openly LGBTQ mayor, was elected to succeed Emanuel as mayor in 2019. All three city-wide elective offices were held by women (and women of color) for the first time in Chicago history: in addition to Lightfoot, the city clerk was Anna Valencia and the city treasurer was Melissa Conyears-Ervin . On May 15, 2023, Brandon Johnson assumed office as

4914-424: The city's first female mayor, was elected. She was notable for temporarily moving into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project and for leading Chicago's school system out of a financial crisis. In 1983, Harold Washington became the first black mayor of Chicago. Washington's first term in office directed attention to poor and previously neglected minority neighborhoods. He was re‑elected in 1987 but died of

5005-481: The clerks see the addresses on the mail they sorted, first by improving the reflectors in the 1880s, then calling for discontinuance of oil lamps in the 1890s and the first experiments with electric lighting in 1912. Clerks' safety was also of great concern to the RMS, with the first comprehensive statistics on work-related injuries published in 1877. Through the second half of the 19th century, most RPO cars were painted in

5096-614: The construction of a railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean in order to open a main line mail route across the western frontier. The act was officially entitled "AN ACT to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes". The Act authorized government-funded railroad mail routes across

5187-515: The convention hall, with anti-war protesters, journalists and bystanders being beaten by police. Major construction projects, including the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower , which in 1974 became the world's tallest building ), University of Illinois at Chicago , McCormick Place , and O'Hare International Airport , were undertaken during Richard J. Daley's tenure. In 1979, Jane Byrne ,

5278-665: The demise of the railway post office network in the late 1960s, the need for transfer offices diminished and most were closed or merged with other positions by the early 1970s. Railway post office From the middle of the 19th century, many American railroads earned substantial revenues through contracts with the U.S. Post Office Department (USPOD) to carry mail aboard high-speed passenger trains. The Railway Mail Service enforced various standardized designs on RPOs. A number of railway companies maintained nominally unprofitable passenger routes, having found that their financial losses from moving people were more than offset by transporting

5369-479: The district and forcing a shutdown of electrical power. The area was shut down for three days and some buildings did not reopen for weeks; losses were estimated at $ 1.95 billion. On February 23, 2011, Rahm Emanuel , a former White House Chief of Staff and member of the House of Representatives , won the mayoral election. Emanuel was sworn in as mayor on May 16, 2011, and won re-election in 2015. Lori Lightfoot ,

5460-526: The fair was technological innovation over the century since Chicago's founding. During World War II , the city of Chicago alone produced more steel than the United Kingdom every year from 1939 – 1945, and more than Nazi Germany from 1943 – 1945. The Great Migration, which had been on pause due to the Depression, resumed at an even faster pace in the second wave , as hundreds of thousands of blacks from

5551-550: The first letter to the Pony Express ). Purpose-built Railway Post Office (RPO) cars entered service on this line a few weeks after the service was initiated. They were used by staff to separate mail for connection with a westbound stagecoach departing soon after the train's arrival at St. Joseph. This service lasted approximately one year. The first permanent Railway Post Office route was established on August 28, 1864, between Chicago, Illinois , and Clinton, Iowa . This service

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5642-515: The introduction of the Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act 1838 . In the United States, some references suggest that the first shipment of mail carried on a train (sorted at the endpoints and carried in a bag on the train with other baggage) occurred in 1831 on the South Carolina Rail Road . Other sources state that the first official contract to regularly carry mail on a train was made with

5733-428: The lighter end off the catcher arm. As the inbound pouch slammed into the catcher arm, the clerk kicked the outbound mail pouch out of the car, making certain to kick it far enough that it was not sucked back under the train. Outbound pouches of first class mail were sealed with a locked strap for security. Larger sacks with optional provisions for locking were used for newspapers, magazines, and parcel post. An employee of

5824-499: The local liaison between the Railway Mail Service and the host railroad, and maintained detailed statistical records which were used to audit railroad charges for mail transportation and car usage. This latter task involved determining the amount of mail in baggage cars or storage mail cars, a unique process of estimating the car area occupied by mail sacks rather than counting individual sacks. Other duties included sorting letters which had been mailed at depot letter boxes and providing

5915-735: The local post office would retrieve the pouches and sacks and deliver them to the post office. In the 1950s the Budd Company offered two versions of its self-propelled diesel RDC with RPO: the RDC-3 combine and the RDC-4 (a baggage/mail/express only unit). These models were purchased by the New York Central , Boston & Maine , New Haven Railroad , Rock Island , Pacific Great Eastern , Northern Pacific , Canadian Pacific Railway , Canadian National and Minneapolis & St. Louis . Most RPO cars had

6006-451: The lowest points are along the lake shore at 578 ft (176.2 m), while the highest point, at 672 ft (205 m), is the morainal ridge of Blue Island in the city's far south side. Lake Shore Drive runs adjacent to a large portion of Chicago's waterfront. Some of the parks along the waterfront include Lincoln Park , Grant Park , Burnham Park , and Jackson Park . There are 24 public beaches across 26 miles (42 km) of

6097-624: The mail on such passenger routes. The world's first official carriage of mail by rail was by the United Kingdom's General Post Office in November 1830, using adapted railway carriages on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway . Sorting of mail en-route first occurred in the United Kingdom with the introduction of the travelling post office in 1838 on the Grand Junction Railway , following

6188-568: The mail on the fly" as a part of its regular runs. As part of the 40th anniversary of the end of RPO service, Minnesota Transportation Museum will be placing #1102 on display at Saint Paul Union Depot as part of its "Last Mail Train" for National Train Day, 6 May 2017. At the end of the day, Great Northern 400 , Northern Pacific Railway RPO #1102 and two coaches will be departing Union Depot as Train #1 bound for Osceola, Wisconsin. It will be hauling commemorative envelopes and cards to be sent all across

6279-639: The majority of this service consisted of one or more cars at the head end of passenger trains, many railways operated solid mail trains between major cities; these solid mail trains would often carry 300 tons of mail daily. After 1948, the railway post office network began its decline although it remained the principal intercity mail transportation and distribution function within the Post Office Department (POD). There were 794 RPO lines operating over 161,000 miles of railroad in that year. Only 262 RPO routes were still operating by January 1, 1962. In 1942,

6370-498: The present location of Jackson Park . The Exposition drew 27.5 million visitors, and is considered the most influential world's fair in history. The University of Chicago , formerly at another location, moved to the same South Side location in 1892. The term "midway" for a fair or carnival referred originally to the Midway Plaisance , a strip of park land that still runs through the University of Chicago campus and connects

6461-593: The problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. This project began with the construction and improvement of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and was completed with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that connects to the Illinois River , which flows into

6552-527: The railroads, allowing mail to be exchanged between routes at junction points where two railroads crossed or shared passenger terminals. Shortly before the First World War , the Post Office Department began assigning railway mail clerks to new transfer office positions which were established at many of the larger railroad junction points as well as passenger terminals in larger cities. These transfer clerks supervised mail exchanges between trains, served as

6643-428: The route. Registered mail was also handled. The foreman in charge was required to carry a regulation pistol while on duty to discourage theft of the mail. Because of the physical and mental demands placed on RPO clerks, the Railway Mail Service pushed the adoption of standardized floor plans and fixtures for all RPO cars, with the first plans published in 1885. The RMS also pressed for improved lighting fixtures to help

6734-584: The runways. After successfully running for re-election five times, and becoming Chicago's longest-serving mayor, Richard M. Daley declined to run for a seventh term. In 1992, a construction accident near the Kinzie Street Bridge produced a breach connecting the Chicago River to a tunnel below, which was part of an abandoned freight tunnel system extending throughout the downtown Loop district. The tunnels filled with 250 million US gallons (1,000,000 m ) of water, affecting buildings throughout

6825-596: The said place called "Chicagou" which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quantity of garlic which grows in the forests in this region. The city has had several nicknames throughout its history, such as the Windy City , Chi-Town, Second City, and City of the Big Shoulders. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by the Potawatomi , an indigenous tribe who had succeeded

6916-486: The shore of Lake Michigan , Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1837 near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed . It grew rapidly in the mid-19th century. In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow. Chicago made noted contributions to urban planning and architecture , such as

7007-570: The steel industry in Chicago, but the steel crisis of the 1970s and 1980s reduced this number to just 28,000 in 2015. In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Raby led the Chicago Freedom Movement , which culminated in agreements between Mayor Richard J. Daley and the movement leaders. Two years later, the city hosted the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention , which featured physical confrontations both inside and outside

7098-551: The unemployed. In the spring of 1937 Republic Steel Works witnessed the Memorial Day massacre of 1937 in the neighborhood of East Side. In 1933, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was fatally wounded in Miami, Florida , during a failed assassination attempt on President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1933 and 1934, the city celebrated its centennial by hosting the Century of Progress International Exposition World's Fair . The theme of

7189-625: The visual arts, literature , film, theater , comedy (especially improvisational comedy ), food , dance, and music (particularly jazz , blues , soul , hip-hop , gospel , and electronic dance music , including house music ). Chicago is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera of Chicago , while the Art Institute of Chicago provides an influential visual arts museum and art school . The Chicago area also hosts

7280-644: The waterfront. Landfill extends into portions of the lake providing space for Navy Pier , Northerly Island , the Museum Campus , and large portions of the McCormick Place Convention Center. Most of the city's high-rise commercial and residential buildings are close to the waterfront. An informal name for the entire Chicago metropolitan area is "Chicagoland", which generally means the city and all its suburbs, though different organizations have slightly different definitions. Major sections of

7371-525: The world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. The city grew significantly in size and population by incorporating many neighboring townships between 1851 and 1920, with the largest annexation happening in 1889, with five townships joining the city, including the Hyde Park Township , which now comprises most of the South Side of Chicago and the far southeast of Chicago, and

7462-431: Was John H. Rauch, M.D. Rauch established a plan for Chicago's park system in 1866. He created Lincoln Park by closing a cemetery filled with shallow graves, and in 1867, in response to an outbreak of cholera he helped establish a new Chicago Board of Health. Ten years later, he became the secretary and then the president of the first Illinois State Board of Health, which carried out most of its activities in Chicago. In

7553-467: Was called the Society for Human Rights . It produced the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom . Police and political pressure caused the organization to disband. The Great Depression brought unprecedented suffering to Chicago, in no small part due to the city's heavy reliance on heavy industry. Notably, industrial areas on the south side and neighborhoods lining both branches of

7644-506: Was discontinued on June 30, 1977. The last route with a railway post office title was actually a boat run that lasted a year longer. This boat railway post office was the Lake Winnipesaukee RPO operating between The Weirs, New Hampshire , and Bear Island on Lake Winnipesaukee . The final date it operated with a postmark was September 30, 1978. Many RPO cars have been preserved in railroad museums across North America; some of

7735-462: Was founded in 1837, most of the early building was around the mouth of the Chicago River, as can be seen on a map of the city's original 58 blocks. The overall grade of the city's central, built-up areas is relatively consistent with the natural flatness of its overall natural geography, generally exhibiting only slight differentiation otherwise. The average land elevation is 579 ft (176.5 m) above sea level . While measurements vary somewhat,

7826-566: Was held in a purpose-built auditorium called the Wigwam . He defeated Douglas in the general election, and this set the stage for the American Civil War . To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough 's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to

7917-521: Was incorporated on Saturday, March 4, 1837, and for several decades was the world's fastest-growing city. As the site of the Chicago Portage , the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicago's first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad , and the Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. The canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on

8008-414: Was operated by Pacific Electric Railway on its route between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, California . When the post office made a controversial policy change to process mail in large regional "sectional centers," mail was now sorted by large machines, not by people, and the remaining railway post office routes, along with all highway post office routes, were phased out of service. In September 1967

8099-619: Was renamed the Postal Transportation Service on October 1, 1948, and existed until 1960. After 1960, the management of railway post office routes as well as Highway Post Office routes, Air Mail Facility , terminal railway post offices , and transfer offices , were shifted to the Bureau of Transportation . At their height, RPO cars were used on over 9,000 train routes covering more than 200,000 route miles in North America. While

8190-455: Was repealed. The 1920s saw gangsters , including Al Capone , Dion O'Banion , Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era . Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran. From 1920 to 1921,

8281-469: Was resolved by 1933, and at the same time, federal relief funding began to flow into Chicago. Chicago was also a hotbed of labor activism, with Unemployed Councils contributing heavily in the early depression to create solidarity for the poor and demand relief; these organizations were created by socialist and communist groups. By 1935 the Workers Alliance of America begun organizing the poor, workers,

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