Make Me a City

by Jonathan Carr

  It was not long before they were passing Potter Palmer’s own hotel, on the northwest corner of Quincy and State, with its vulgar mix of neoclassical pillars and fake turrets. Three or four porters in blue-gold uniforms and peaked caps stood at the front entrance. If all went well, they would try to bring him here afterward to celebrate with French champagne and canapés and drunken speeches. In which case, he would make his excuses. He had been inside once before and was appalled by its extravagance and ostentation. It struck him as grotesque to build a marble palace like the Palmer House Hotel in a city where most of the population still lived in wooden shacks, without clean water or covered sewers. How many gallons of water, he wondered, does this hotel consume every day for its lawns and fountains and private suites?

  When he reached his office, he did not sit down at his desk. He went to the window, from where he had an uninterrupted view of the Waterworks. Two black columns of smoke drifted across the sky, dwarfing the massive brick-built counterparts from which they emerged. In the comparative silence of the early morning, the churn of the engines that turned the flywheel was as regular as the slap of waves against the lakeshore. It was a solid, reassuring sound. As the numbers came to mind—4 engines, 3,000 horsepower, 2,750 gallons of water at each turn of the 26-foot-diameter flywheel, 57 million gallons a day, 270 miles of water pipes serving 150,000 people—he allowed himself a moment of self-congratulation.

  Perhaps the quandary over lives lost could, after all, be resolved numerically. A stranger visiting Chicago would have to conclude that, in almost every area of life, the fortunes of a small elite had been bettered at the expense of the masses. But the same could not be said for water supply and sanitation. For a moment, he tried to imagine how the Waterworks, with its floors of throbbing pumps and pipes, would look to a poor farmer from the prairies on his first visit to Chicago, a man still gathering water in pails from a well and measuring out each precious drop. He would surely marvel at the way in which nature had been bent to man’s will. And he would gaze in wonder across the street at the water storage tower with its vast, elevated tank.

  He was about to go to his desk and deal with paperwork—it would be a good way of distracting himself from the events to come—when a carriage pulled up below and a familiar figure stepped out. As the man crossed the street, there was no mistaking his brisk, purposeful steps. There was no reason for him to be here, and certainly not at this time in the morning.

  He opened the door. “Good morning, Dr. Rauch. This is a surprise. Do come in.”

  “Mr. Chesbrough.” Dr. John Rauch, with whom he sat on the Board of Health, acknowledged him with the curtest of nods as he removed his hat. A lean, wiry man, his sandy hair was cut unfashionably short. “It will not work,” he said without preamble, hardening each w in a Germanic inflection.

  Ellis had not even had time to close the door. “I don’t follow your meaning, sir,” he said, annoyed by both the intrusion and the man’s manners, despite being used to them.

  “The Canal,” said Dr. Rauch. “What else would I come here to talk to you about today? The Canal will not turn back the river.”

  Although Ellis did not like Dr. Rauch, he had a grudging respect for his integrity. At times, indeed, he found himself admiring the doctor’s single-mindedness and refusal to compromise. He was one of those few public health officials who campaigned, as Ellis liked to think he did himself, to put the welfare of the general citizenry above that of any powerful, private interests.

  “In my calculations, I have anticipated the worst, Dr. Rauch.” He took time to settle behind the desk and draw up his chair, glancing at his visitor as he did so, wondering how he could send him quickly on his way.

  “The same as you anticipated the worst for the roof of the Waterworks?”

  “I fail to see any connection between the two,” he said, barely managing to disguise how much the reference irked him. Ellis had insisted the roof be constructed of iron. If anything else were used, the whole building was liable to go up in flames if a fire ever took hold. But the Council would only approve the project if the roof were made with much cheaper—and highly combustible—timber and slate. In the end he had conceded, but it was a compromise that always rankled. Perhaps the Council had only been bluffing. Perhaps he should have put his foot down.

  “You will see the connection,” said Dr. Rauch, “when you go to Mud Lake.”

  Ellis was no longer prepared to play at being civil. “And why would I need to go to Mud Lake, wherever Mud Lake is?”

  “Mud Lake is past Bridgeport”—Dr. Rauch paused—“halfway between the Des Plaines River and the South Branch of the Chicago River.”

  Mud Lake, the doctor seemed to be telling him, was close to the course of the Canal. An inner voice began to crow. It doesn’t matter how good your calculations are, something will go wrong because something always does go wrong. “What,” he asked in a voice that failed to mask the concern he felt, “don’t I know about?”

  * * *

  A few minutes later they boarded Dr. Rauch’s brougham.

  “Along the Blue Island line?” he heard the driver ask. Dr. Rauch gave some instructions but Ellis was not attending. He was annoyed with himself for having agreed to do this, despite the doctor’s refusal to elaborate.

  “You must see this for yourself, Mr. Chesbrough,” he had insisted.

  “Why are you only telling me about this today?”

  “I myself was only informed by a little bird late last night. They must have paid to keep it secret until after the opening, so they don’t ruin your big day.”

  “Who are ‘they’ and what have they done? I demand that you tell me.”

  He could demand as much as he wanted, said Dr. Rauch with maddening sangfroid, but he was a doctor, not an engineer. “If you were to tell me you had evidence a friend of mine was on his deathbed, would I take your word for it or would I seek to examine the patient myself?”

  So here they were, he and Dr. Rauch, traveling together across the city toward Mud Lake in the early morning of Tuesday, July 18. Ellis sat in one corner of the buggy, and submitted himself to its rolling fits and starts. What danger could a small lake near Bridgeport pose to the project? And what person in his right mind would want the Canal to fail? Success would mean that the whole city was better off. Everybody, from the richest businessmen to the poorest laborers, would benefit from the river being turned back. The businessmen, in fact, whose factories produced most of the toxic waste that ended up in the Lake stood to benefit most of all. There would be no further point to Dr. Rauch’s noisy campaign to make them take responsibility for their own waste. Everything undesirable or dangerous would be taken far away from Chicago, in the direction of Joliet and the Mississippi, and along the way it would be deodorized. By the time the water reached the Gulf of Mexico, it would long since have been purified. As Ellis always said: “The solution to pollution is dilution.”

  The driver cajoled the horses and cracked the whip as they sped along an almost empty Wabash, the grind of the carriage wheels over the macadam surface amplified in the early morning quiet. It was a fine, tree-lined paved street with gaslights and iron gates and wooden walkways. This was where the wealthy lived. The lots were spacious, the houses built of brick and faced with Athens limestone. There were stables to the side and gardens to the front. They were extravagant, built with a potpourri of European influences. You could see hints of a French château, an attempt at a Gothic tower and even one would-be English castle with little turrets on each corner that resembled those on the Waterworks. He looked away. There was no desire on his part to live in such grandiose surroundings or to associate with those that did.

  Dr. Rauch leaned out and pointed, as they drove past four identical brownstone blocks on three stories erected side by side. “Those are apartments, New York style. How much rent you think, every month?” It was not really a question and, even if it was, Ellis did not intend to answer it. “And you know who are the landlords? The found
er of Chicago,” he said, “and the city’s never-ending congressman.” Dr. Rauch regularly employed sarcasm, though it did him precious little good in a Committee meeting. “Why, Mr. Chesbrough, you surely know who I mean, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” snapped Ellis. Good Lord, the man could be irritating.

  “They’d do anything for a profit, those two.”

  Ellis had often heard Mr. Ogden described as the founder of Chicago and Long John Wentworth had been a congressman for as long as he could remember. Cunning, powerful and extraordinarily wealthy, it was also true they were misers where public funds were concerned. They had both opposed the Canal scheme when he first proposed it in Committee on grounds of expense. In the consultation period, when the two of them pressed him to make an adjustment to the route, he thought it must be a ruse to stop the project altogether because of the extra costs the diversion would entail. In the end, though, that was the route they approved. Long John was now such a keen supporter of the Canal that he had made a point of taking the credit for it in his reelection campaign. Both Mr. Ogden and Long John would be at the opening today, showering him with praise and compliments. Ellis smiled grimly to himself. Sometimes, to get things done you had to make concessions that went against the grain. He guessed Mr. Ogden and Long John owned the land through which the adjusted Canal route now passed. Dr. Rauch, had he been in his position, would doubtless have refused to make the alteration, and the project would never have seen the light of day. That was the difference between them.

  The landscape changed when they turned their back on the Lake. If someone wanted to try to understand Chicago, thought Ellis, he need only see how suddenly the downtown ended south of Wabash and Michigan, and how abruptly the real city began. Brick ceded to timber, large shrank to small, order turned into chaos. The road deteriorated and narrowed. Everyone was on foot, laborers in caps and dirty shirts on their way to town, hand carts on their way to market. Every so often they passed a cluster of workshops. Blacksmiths and bakers were busy. The sky was beginning to fill with streaks of early morning smoke as the city awakened.

  A few stray sparks in a strong wind, and the whole place would go up in flames. They were all timber frames, huddled close. The yards were small. Some of the buildings leaned precariously; others were tight up against each other like conjoined twins, two to a lot, one in the front, the other in the alley. There were open sewers with no sign of lime that led into swamps of brown sludge. It was a miserable way to live. A lot of these shanties had probably been erected for a few dollars a long time ago on ground that was prone to flooding and subsidence. Ellis put his handkerchief in front of his nose, and was not surprised to see that Dr. Rauch was doing the same.

  “It’s a disgrace,” said Dr. Rauch. “We need bricked sewers and health officers in every part of this city. We need cleanliness and education. Prevention is the best cure.”

  Ellis agreed, and it angered him that the aldermen did so little, but he had no intention of provoking another lecture from Dr. Rauch. They passed through Bridgeport and then, at the end of a rutted street that started out like any other, the landscape returned. It was as if they had emerged from a long, dark tunnel. They were in open prairie again, so flat and endless that at the borders it became indistinguishable from the sky. There were a few homesteads and cultivated fields, but mostly the land was empty. When Ellis looked back in the direction of the city he could see the cut in the land made by the Canal. It was unmistakable, as fixed as a line of ink on a page. But they were not, as he had expected, going toward it.

  “How far is it now,” he demanded of Dr. Rauch, “to Mud Lake?”

  “That’s it. Over there.”

  Ellis shaded his eyes. If he was looking in the right place, Mud Lake was dry.

  * * *

  They set out to walk the last stretch. The sun was higher now, making him only too aware of how overdressed he was. After the uncomfortable drive, with its stark reminder of how most people still had to live, he should have enjoyed the freedom of being able to stretch his legs. He should have been happy. They were in flat, virgin prairie. Tall grasses were rustling in the wind. The land was alive with dense patches of purple and yellow flowers. It was summer, a time of harvesting and celebrating the earth’s abundance. Nature was kind and at her most alluring, despite the lack of rain. Dr. Rauch had fallen silent. Yes, surely Ellis should have been happy. But he was not. He had just seen what it was they were walking toward. He broke into a run.

  How long had he been standing there, coat flung over one shoulder, sweating and wheezing for breath, staring into the newly dug channel as though he had never seen one before … how long had he been there before Dr. Rauch caught up? Ellis was bent double, unable to utter a word even if he had known what to say. He was a mild-mannered man. He prided himself on being polite and reasonable. Now, he was incoherent with rage.

  The channel was about twenty feet wide and five feet deep. The banks of fresh earth piled up on each side were being hauled off in donkey carts and dumped farther away. The working area was shrouded by a veil of dust. Thirty or forty men were down there with picks and shovels, pushing wheelbarrows up and down plank boards, moving about like the wraiths in his Tunnel nightmare.

  There was no mistaking the channel’s direction. It was coming from the Des Plaines River, and it was going toward the Canal, a total distance of about five miles. When finished, it would connect the two. In the spring runoff, if not long before, the force and volume of the water that would be diverted from the Des Plaines—he made some calculations in his head—would be stronger than anything they could pump through the enlarged Canal. The river would revert to its old course. On top of that, sediment would be washed from the Des Plaines into the Canal. The buildup, unless it was regularly dredged, would create blockages.

  “Well, Mr. Chesbrough?” Dr. Rauch was out of breath too, but he wore the same smug smile he saved for moments in Committee meetings when he was about to utter some truth he knew would outrage many of those present. “What is the engineer’s perspective on this?”

  Ellis’s sight was blurred with sweat. His chest was still pounding. His shirt was damp. He rounded on Dr. Rauch and focused all his anger on the cocky, self-righteous, tactless little man standing in front of him. He seized the lapels of Dr. Rauch’s coat—Ellis must have stood nearly a foot taller—and he shook him, back and forth. “Happy now, are you?”

  “Mr. Chesbrough?” pleaded Dr. Rauch. “Please let me go.”

  But he would not let go. He pulled his face close. “Why did you let them do this?” The notion had come to him that Dr. Rauch was responsible, that he was in league with the perpetrators. “Tell me which of your friends is doing this and I will personally … I will…”

  “My friends?”

  The look of astonishment on his face began to bring Ellis back to his senses. He released his grip and staggered away. What was happening? What was he doing?

  Dr. Rauch was moving off, adjusting his collar, eyeing him warily.

  A whistle blew. A man was approaching. “I’m the foreman here and you’re trespassing, gentlemen,” he called out. “This is private land.”

  “It is private profit,” Ellis retorted, “and it must be stopped.”

  The foreman stared at him, a puzzled frown on his face. “Are you Mr. Sewage, sir?”

  Ellis caught up with Dr. Rauch and they walked, side by side, toward the road.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it, Mr. Chesbrough. I often feel like that myself.”

  “Can we stop them?”

  Dr. Rauch shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s too late now.”

  There has to be a way to stop this, thought Ellis. “You go on ahead,” he said. He wanted time to think and he had spotted a field where the hay was already cut and stacked. He needed all the help and luck that superstition could bring. And if there was none to be had, at least it might give him courage.

  * * *

  A
brass band was playing, though it was hard to imagine how they could cope. Ellis, handkerchief alternately swatting at flies and pressed over his nose and mouth, took his place in the center of the black-coated top-hatted dignitaries already gathered on the bridge. It was furiously hot, the insects were intolerable and there was not an inch of shade. He made no attempt to look at ease, as some of the others were doing, for the sake of the onlookers. There was nothing pleasant about this. He was already glued to his shirt and pantaloons, and his beard itched. It was impossible to stand there and breathe normally without feeling nauseous, and yet breathe in some form he must. The cotton handkerchief was a weak filter, and was soon poisoned by the noxious fumes that rose off the sludge below.

  He leaned over the rail. Six feet beneath him, the water barely stirred. Large black flies mulled over the murky surface like a room full of elderly gentlemen after dinner, slow and ponderous, hissing contentedly, licking their lips. In places, the water shone yellow, like a rash. In other spots, it was a tarry black. He focused his gaze on a patch of solid mulch, brown and glutinous, that lay partly above the surface like a quivering jelly. Lumps like that, he thought, once they had been caught by the Canal, would have been pushed south for miles and miles, and the sheer volume of water would have deodorized them, breaking them first into smaller bits, and then smaller still, until by the time the residue reached the Gulf of Mexico there would have been nothing left. Ah, the magic of water. Yes, that was what would have happened.

  The stench was palpable, filling the air like a thick, toxic mist that stained everything it touched. When he got home that night, even after he had scrubbed himself down, there would still be traces left. Mrs. Molloy would have a battle on her hands at the washboard. Dr. Rauch nudged him, offering a boiled sweet. He sucked hard, but it did not help much. Its sweetness was smothered by the odor of raw sewage.