About 15 years ago, while driving on a highway just north of Palm Beach, I asked Ed Glaeser, the noted urban economist, if we were in that mythical place economists call “the featureless plane.” I thought it was funny; I don’t recall if Ed was amused, annoyed, or indifferent.
That story came to mind as I reflected on today’s #stampoftheday, which is connected to construction of the first building in what would later become Chicago, a 234-square mile city where there is less than a 100-foot difference between the highest and lowest points. The stamp itself is a 1-cent stamp, issued in 1898 as part of a series of six stamps released in conjunction with the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha. Based on a painting by William Lamprecht, it portrays Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit priest, preaching to a group of Native Americans.
A French Jesuit missionary, Marquette and Jolliet, a French-Canadian explorer were the first to map the northern portion of the Mississippi River. And on December 4, 1674, he (and a few others in his party) erected that notable building in what became Chicago. By the time the cabin was built, Marquette had already spent six years in North America. In 1666, the 29-year old Marquette was sent to be a missionary in what is now Quebec. Two years later, he was ordered to establish new Jesuit missions along the St. Lawrence River and on the western Great Lakes. Over the next three years, he helped found missions in what are now Sault Sainte Marie, MI; St. Ignace, MI; and La Pointe, WI.
While in La Pointe, natives told Marquette about a major trade route along the Mississippi River. He asked his superiors for permission to explore it and in 1673 they sent him on an expedition, led by Jolliet, to investigate the natives’ claims. After departing from St. Ignace on May 17, with two canoes and five voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry, the sailed to what is now Green Bay, WI and then up the Fox River, nearly to its headwaters, close to what is now Portage, WI. From there, they portaged their canoes about two miles through marsh and oak plains to the Wisconsin River. And on June 17 they entered the Mississippi near present-day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.
The Joliet-Marquette expedition traveled about 800 miles down the river before stopping at the mouth of the Arkansas River (near what is now Arkansas City, AK), a little more than 400 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico. By this point they had encountered several natives carrying European trinkets, and they feared an encounter with Spanish explorers. They followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River, which they learned from local natives provided a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. They reached Lake Michigan near the site of modern-day Chicago, by way of the Chicago Portage. In September, Marquette stopped at the mission of St. Francis Xavier, located in present-day Green Bay, while Jolliet returned to Quebec to relate the news of their discoveries.
Marquette and his party returned to the Illinois territory in late 1674 and, on December 4, they built a log cabin on land that is now part of Chicago to protect themselves from the elements for the winter. The following year, while travelling back to a mission at St. Ignace, MI, Marquette died of dysentery near what is now Ludington, MI.
At the risk of being trite, I’m strangely fascinated by the idea that some structure was the “first” building in a city that now has 2.7 million residents and about 1.2 million housing units (and a region that has about 9.4 million residents and 3.4 million housing units.
The abundance of flora and fauna there when he built that cabin, make it clear this was not the economists’ beloved “featureless plain”—a central urban node is surrounded uniform and flat agricultural land-that is a useful way to think about how a city might grow. But, in some ways Chicago (where I believe the concept of the featureless plain was first developed, comes close as its lowest point, the shoreline of Lake Michigan, is 578 feet above sea level, while its highest point, near the Dan Ryan Woods on the city’s South Side, is only 672 feet above sea level.
In addition, being something of a wise ass, I also find myself wondering if Marquette had to get a zoning variance or environmental permit before he started work on the cabin. Did he have any trouble getting needed materials, if his contractors showed up when they said they would, whether he used union or non-union labor; and whether he had any labor problems. In addition, I want to know if there were cost overruns and if the cabin took longer to build than he anticipated. And, finally, I wonder if he objected when someone decided to build a second cabin close to his new home.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.