Im sure this has already been covered, but for those of you that dont know, this is really interesting. Not only were whole buildings raised an average of six feet while people were in them, many wood buildings were also moved to make room for larger more substantial brick buildings This picture is The Briggs House—a brick hotel—raised, probably in 1866. During the 19th century, the elevation of the Chicago area was not much higher than the shorelines of Lake Michigan, so for many years there was little or no naturally occurring drainage from the city surface. The lack of drainage caused unpleasant living conditions, and standing water harbored pathogens that caused numerous epidemics. Epidemics including typhoid fever and dysentery blighted Chicago six years in a row culminating in the 1854 outbreak of cholera that killed six percent of the city’s population. The crisis forced the citys engineers and aldermen to take the drainage problem seriously and after many heated discussions[6][7]—and following at least one false start—a solution eventually materialized. In 1856, engineer Ellis S. Chesbrough drafted a plan for the installation of a city-wide sewerage system and submitted it to the Common Council, which adopted the plan. Workers then laid drains, covered and refinished roads and sidewalks with several feet of soil, and raised most buildings to the new grade with hydraulic jacks.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 20:47:35 +0000
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