Claretian Associates

History

Chicago's Southeast Side is an interesting and dynamic place often overlooked by other Chicagoans. The area includes the communities of South Chicago, South Deering, the East Side and Hegewisch. Within those communities are smaller neighborhoods with colorful names like the Bush, Irondale, Slag Valley, Arizona, Millgate, and others. Some of these names are reflective of the natural features of the region. Others relate to the tremendous historical influence of heavy industry, especially the steel industry. United States Steel South Works, Wisconsin Steel, Republic Steel, Pressed Steel and other industrial operations including General Mills and the Ford Motor Company provided the engine that drove the economy in the region where the Calumet River emptied into Lake Michigan. One must say emptied (past tense) because the Calumet River, like its counterpart to the north, the Chicago River, has been reversed and now flows backward.

The mills and other employers offered jobs which attracted thousands of immigrants to the area. Irish, Germans and Swedes were followed by Poles, Italians, Greeks, Serbians, Croatians, Slovenians, Eastern European Jews, Lithuanians, Hungarians, and others. African Americans from the South and immigrants from Mexico provided the labor when the United States shut the open door of European immigration after World War I. These newcomers to the area brought their own culture and institutions with them. Perhaps the most important of these institutions were the churches and houses of worship.

Whatever was happening in United States urban history after the Civil War was reflected in these communities. Industrialization, unionization, immigration, and urbanization were themes which played out in Chicago's Southeast Side.

The history of South Chicago began as early as 1800. Many of the stories told about South Chicago are visits of first generation pioneers and immigrants. The region now called South Chicago was first settled by Askhum, an Indian chief for the Pottawatomies and 'lord' of the Callimink Valley. His name meant 'more and more' and his land, the Callimink, was renamed Calumet by the white man.

After the Civil War, industrial development began to occur in earnest. James H. Bowen, the "Father of South Chicago" and other developers led the way. The opportunities offered by the vacant land and the transportation access offered by the Calumet River and Lake Michigan were the drawing card. Improvements in the Calumet River were directly related to the opening of the first major mill in the area, the Joseph H. Brown Mill, which opened in 1875. Other mills followed the Brown Mill into the area and were the magnet which drew people seeking work into the area.

South Chicago soon was "taken over" by the Eastern Europeans who provided steel with labor. In 1881 the South Works of the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company was opened. This was a steel plant that would successfully make the South Chicago area one of the world's leading steel producing areas. In 1883 the Illinois Central railroad began service. By now South Chicago was rapidly built up and extensively developed.

Three neighborhoods began to emerge around 1890. One was the Bush, bounded by U.S. Steel on the east and South Shore Drive on the west, between 83rd Street and 86th street. It was called the Bush because in the early days it had nothing but a strip of sandy beach with some shrubbery. The second was the Millgate, south of the Bush area between the mills and is the oldest section of South Chicago. It was called this because all the main entrances to South Works steel mill could be approached from there. South Chicago was the main residential and shopping district that grew up east and west of Commercial Avenue. By 1920 South Chicago was an established community filled with working-class people living in single-family homes, two and three flats, and apartment buildings.

Each succeeding nationality became a part of the South Chicago community, but each group of newcomers was treated as " different" from previous group with the newest residents always getting the worst housing and lived in Millgate.

The area has undergone some major economic changes with the closing of area steel mills and especially the closing of United States Steel South Works in 1992. The former site of South Works is up for sale at present and the 576 acre site may hold the key to the future of South Chicago.

The preceding text was taken from the Southeast Historical Museum web site. Click here for more more information.