The River That Flows Backwards — How Chicago Reversed a River to Save Itself

In 1900, Chicago did something no city had ever done. It took a river that flowed into the lake it drank from, and made it flow the other way. Chicago drank from Lake Michigan. Chicago also emptied its sewers into the Chicago River, which ran straight into Lake Michigan. The city was poisoning its own water supply, and everybody knew it. Typhoid and cholera moved through the neighbourhoods on a schedule. The South Fork of the river, behind the Union Stock Yards, filled with so much slaughter waste that it bubbled with its own gas, locals called it Bubbly Creek. The solution was not to treat the sewage. It was to move it. In 1889 the Illinois legislature created the Sanitary District of Chicago and gave it one job: dig a canal big enough to drag a river backwards. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal ran 28 miles, employed more than 15,000 men at its peak, and was the largest earth-moving project in North America before Panama. Downstream, St. Louis understood exactly what was coming. So on 2 January 1900, before any injunction could land, crews blew the last dam in the middle of winter and let the water go. St. Louis filed on the 17th. The case went to the Supreme Court, and Chicago won. This episode covers why a city drinks from the thing it defecates into, how the canal was actually dug, the legal race that decided its opening date, and the awkward part nobody mentions: recent mortality research suggests the reversal saved far fewer lives in its first year than the legend claims. SOURCES & FURTHER READING Illinois Secretary of State — State Archives, photographic record of the reversal: https://www.ilsos.gov/departments/arc... WTTW Chicago — How Chicago Reversed Its River, animated history: https://www.wttw.com/chicago-river-to... Encyclopedia of Chicago — Typhoid: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistor... The Chicago River Reversal of 1900: Separating Myth from Measured Impact on Public Health (preprint, not yet peer-reviewed): https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.11... Waterwake explores the rivers, lakes and waterways that shaped human history. Subscribe for a new episode every week. #chicago #chicagoriver #engineering #history #documentary