Bill Text: IL HR0702 | 2021-2022 | 102nd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Congratulates the City of Chicago on the 185th anniversary of its founding.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 21-0)

Status: (Passed) 2022-03-04 - Removed Co-Sponsor Rep. La Shawn K. Ford [HR0702 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2021-HR0702-Introduced.html

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HOUSE RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
Representatives wish to congratulate the City of Chicago on
the occasion of the 185th anniversary of its founding; and
WHEREAS, Chicago, with a population hovering at
approximately three million, is the State's largest and the
country's third most populous city; and
WHEREAS, A drive across Chicago's lively immigrant
neighborhoods is a trip around the world; the cultures of
virtually every country can be found in food stores,
restaurants, shops, places of worship, and street-corner
conversations; and
WHEREAS, Chicago's first permanent non-indigenous resident
was a trader named Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a free black
man from Haiti whose father was a French sailor and whose
mother was an African slave; he came to Chicago in the 1770s
via the Mississippi River from New Orleans with his Native
American wife, and their home stood at the mouth of the Chicago
River; and
WHEREAS, Incorporated as a city in 1837, Chicago was
ideally situated to take advantage of the trading

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possibilities created by the nation's westward expansion; the
completion of the Illinois & Michigan Canal in 1848 created a
water link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River;
today, 50 percent of U.S. rail freight passes through Chicago,
even as the city has become the nation's busiest aviation
center, thanks to O'Hare and Midway international airports;
and
WHEREAS, The buildings, streets, and sidewalks of Chicago
in its early days were made of wood, and most of them burned to
the ground in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; the Chicago Fire
Department training academy is on the site of the O'Leary
property where the fire began; the Chicago Water Tower and
Pumping Station at Michigan and Chicago avenues are among the
few buildings to have survived the fire; and
WHEREAS, Chicago rebuilt quickly; much of the debris was
dumped into Lake Michigan as landfill, forming the
underpinnings for what is now Grant Park, Millennium Park, and
the Art Institute of Chicago; only 22 years later, Chicago
celebrated its comeback by holding the World's Columbian
Exposition of 1893, with its memorable White City; one of the
Exposition buildings was rebuilt to become the Museum of
Science and Industry; and
WHEREAS, Chicagoans have demonstrated their ingenuity in

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matters large and small; the nation's first skyscraper, the
10-story, steel-framed Home Insurance Building, was built in
1884 at LaSalle and Adams streets and demolished in 1931; when
residents were threatened by waterborne illnesses from sewage
flowing into Lake Michigan, they reversed the Chicago River in
1900 to make it flow toward the Mississippi; the start of the
Historic Route 66 begins at Grant Park on Adams Street in the
front of the Art Institute of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, Chicago was the birthplace of the refrigerated
rail car (Swift), mail-order retailing (Sears and Montgomery
Ward), the car radio (Motorola), and the TV remote control
(Zenith); the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction,
ushering in the Atomic Age, took place at the University of
Chicago in 1942; the 1,451-foot Willis Tower, formerly known
as the Sears Tower, completed in 1974, was the tallest
building in the world from 1974 to 1998; and
WHEREAS, Chicago has become a global city, a thriving
center of international trade and commerce, and a place where
people of every nationality and background come to pursue the
American dream; therefore, be it
RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
we congratulate the City of Chicago on the 185th anniversary

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of its founding and wish the city many more wonderful years;
and be it further
RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
presented to the Mayor of Chicago as symbol of our respect and
esteem.