From the Archives: Building the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal
Take a glimpse into Lemont’s history courtesy of the Lemont Area Historical Society.
This week, the historical society takes us back to the 1890s in Lemont, during the construction of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Running nearly parallel to the no longer used Illinois and Michigan (I & M) Canal, by its completion in 1900, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal linked the south branch of the Chicago River with the Des Plaines River just north of Joliet. In the first photo, a small steam-powered train hauls rock away from the construction site of the ship canal -- a project that was quite an engineering feat for those days. In the second photo, a steam engine powers a looping conveyor to haul rock up to the surface in the final phase of construction of the ship canal near Lemont, circa 1897. - - - - - - - - - - - - - …
In this Article:
Don Mueggenborg
9:10 am on Tuesday, February 12, 2013
There are remnants of the trains used by the narrow gauge rail tracks visible in the river in low water (much to the chagrin of the paddlers) more ›