in a typical 19th century city the buildings were not exactly the skyscrapers we associate
with cities today while multi-storied structures were still very much a thing in many burgeoning
towns a large number of the structures were mostly made of wood but things were looking up
and the industrial age was manifesting rapidly growing cities with ever larger structures to
fulfill the need to find places to put their swelling populaces the sheer mass of people
also brought with it an incredible level of noise as attested by philosopher arthur schopenhauer
who even wrote an entire enraged treatise on the habit of people cracking whips all day then there
was the smell the unbearable unignorable stench not only of people living in cramped quarters but
most importantly a feces scattered throughout the streets for more on this you can see our video on
our sister channel today i found out did people in the middle ages really throw fecal matter out
of their windows naturally this whole situation was not only a hindrance to progress but also
dangerous as this lack of hygiene caused mass outbreaks of disease in these densely populated
areas so it was in this environment that the citizens of chicago came up with a rather
ingenious if rather insane sounding idea they were going to raise the entire city every building
every road and all other infrastructure up off the ground and build a sewer system underneath
and why do this instead of perhaps the rather more logical course of simply digging into the earth
well to begin with let's briefly talk about how a typical urban wastewater system actually works
as will come as a shock to absolutely nobody there are a series of pipes and large sewer
mains that ideally always flow downward with the help of gravity until finally they
end in a water treatment facility or classically just end up in a large river or body of water
gravity is the most helpful contributor to this system as pumps often have issues with the
unappetizing solids also contained in the waste water and additionally may accidentally turn
the bacteria and chemicals contained within to deadly gases under pressure nonetheless cleverly
engineered grinder pumps and lift stations are a necessity in some areas still ideally narrow
household pipes flow downward collecting in the slowly widening sewer main pipes that follow a
course further down usually underneath streets and ending in low-lying wastewater treatment plants
but much much much more on this you can see our surprisingly fascinating video on today i found
out so what happens after you flush in any event this all brings up the question of what if there
isn't a way down at all and pumping everything upwards is simply not feasible alright so this
brings us back to 19th century chicago the issue with chicago among other things is that it wasn't
exactly well planned out by the early prospectors and investors in property in the region being only
a few feet higher than the local waterways and lake michigan essentially the city was built
on a swap and with no elevation to speak of within the city there was just nowhere for waste water to
go the resulting muck is no joke especially if you and an entire city's worth of people wade through
it every single day industry certainly adds part in producing waste but horses as the most common
means of transport and the growing population who had no way of getting rid of natural waste and
garbage as it wasn't collected and who therefore dumped an awful lot of it on the streets certainly
didn't help either and unlike many other cities this lovely wastewater didn't run off with the
latest grains but rather it just lingered there this created a lovely layer of mud
that even raised wooden walkways couldn't fix especially as with all the moisture and
less appetizing properties of the water the wood tended to rot rather quickly to illustrate the
state of things a debris chicago joke was a man walking down the street discovers another traveler
buried up to his shoulders in mud on the road the man asked the traveller do you need help no thank
you the traveler replies i have a good horse under me as can be expected in this environment disease
was rampant there were common issues with dysentery typhoid and cholera with outbreak after
outbreak coming on the backs of one another for example in 1855 alone one in every 16 people in
the city was killed by cholera needless to say things had to change there remained however the
issue of being located in a place already close to the water level digging an efficient sewer system
in 1850s chicago was simply not possible with the water level where it was there just wasn't
anywhere to go downwards more importantly there was the very real danger of polluting the lake
even more than it already was and therefore the drinking water supply in short gravity simply
wasn't working in anybody's favor so enter ellis chesperer of boston who was commissioned to deal
with the issue the solution he and others decided upon was to build upwards instead of down and
then have the wastewater flow into the mississippi and away from chicago out of sight out of mind at
least to everyone upriver for those downriver well just a different story isn't it don't worry about
them as for chicago the plan was outlined by the chicago board of sewage commissioners in 1855 and
a literally groundbreaking new ordinance was passed affected areas of the city meaning downtown
chicago and neighborhoods by the river would be raised between 4 and 14 feet as needed in a given
section this would increase the distance between the streets and water level and allow for the
creation of an extensive sewer system underneath the new ground level and so it was that starting
in 1858 buildings even weighing several hundred tons were one by one raised at the same time
sewers were built underneath and new roads and sidewalks were erected on the level of the houses
to further aid in the whole process the canal was dredged to reverse the flow of the river
which simultaneously freed up massive amounts of material that was then used to raise street levels
as can be expected the undertaking required bit of innovation entered george pullman one of many
new house movers and lifters pullman is credited for bringing the essential techniques of using
railroad jacks for lifting the large buildings of chicago these jacks have previously been used at
the eerie canal and to lift train cars off their tracks and it was exactly the technique that the
city had been waiting for fixing a great number of jack screws in combination with rails beneath the
buildings hundreds of people could simultaneously turn the screws slowly and consistently raising
entire buildings without damaging the structures themselves for an idea of the peak scale here the
biggest such lift was executed in 1868 taking 600 men who were respectively in charge of 10
jack screws each bringing the number up to 6 000 beneath the buildings and an entire
block that was slated to be lifted when it was time to do a particular lift a signal was given
and every one of these jacks had their screws turned by one notch so that everything remained
level overall in the block the repetition of this process very very slowly raised the buildings
over the course of four days with the houses then elevated temporary timbers were placed underneath
until new foundations were laid after this all that remained was the slow descent of the houses
onto these higher foundations now you might be thinking this probably interrupted day to day
life in these buildings but that actually usually wasn't the case for example there are stories of
guests at the tremont hotel sleeping in their beds while the work was done remaining undisturbed and
just waking up a few feet higher above the original ground level than when they went
to sleep an entire block on lake street a notably wealthy district was even moved up all at once as
was break's house with people doing their jobs and living their lives inside uninterrupted as
you might imagine raising every building in the city wasn't exactly something that could be done
overnight and it turns out that raising the entire city ultimately took about two full decades but it
worked out in the city's favor as the insane idea and execution also proved an effective
tourist attraction to quote donald miller in his history of chicago city of the century
the process of hoisting huge buildings proved endlessly fascinating to visitors and chicagoans
alike people would gather in the streets by the hundreds to watch four and five-story buildings
and entire city blocks at a time including horse car tracks lampposts hydrants and even shade trees
raised as high as 12 feet on top of simply raising buildings some also took the opportunity to move
their building to an entirely different location via simply digging up the building putting it
on logs or the like and rolling it somewhere else because i guess well why not in 1968 david mccray
a scottish traveler visiting chicago described it as follows never a day passed during my stay
in the city that i did not meet one or more houses shifting their quarters one day i met
nine going out great madison street and the horse cars we had to stop twice to let houses get across
on this note those who could afford it sometimes simply moved their buildings to higher areas of
the city and adapting to the general glow up the city was receiving during this time of industry
others started working with stone rather than wood creating better looking more durable buildings
as can be expected however some disparity remained and it all had to do with wealth
james sterling a visit of chicago in 1857 stated when you walk along even the principal streets you
pass perhaps a block of fine stone built stores with a good granite pavement in front and a few
steps on you to send three or four wooden steps to the old level of the street and find a wooden
pavement in front of low shabby looking wooden houses the poorer population who simply could
not afford to raise their homes had to approach the changing circumstances in a different manner
instead of shouldering the enormous costs of changing the entire layout of their residences
or moving it elsewhere they often just built new doors and staircases that allowed them to
access the higher levels of the street effectively burying the blue parts of the home in the process
this created by level houses which can still be found in the chicago south and west side and in
areas of fullerton all areas that remained untouched by the great chicago fire of 1871.
in other parts of the city this devastating fire destroyed many houses which in turn
allowed new ones to be built on the rubble and therefore also on the desired level in the end
after the completion of the raising of the entire city between about 4 and 14
feet chicago ended up with one of america's first comprehensive storm and wastewater systems proving
yet again that when we humans pool our brain power and efforts even the easiest of situations
are always solvable even if we have to think a little bit outside the box to be able to do it
so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit
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