February 11, 1889 – Apparently, the good citizens
of Joliet are angry and determined not to take any more abuse from
Chicago. At a meeting of a joint
committee composed of members of the Joliet City Council and members of a city
businessmen’s association, a resolution is adopted that reads, “Resolved, That
the City Council be requested to use all honorable means to prevent Chicago
from sending its sewage down the Desplaines Valley.” [Chicago
Daily Tribune, February 12, 1889] Joliet Mayor J. D. Paige says, “When the
works [the Chicago Water-Works] were built Chicago was to send down more water. Instead it has given more sewage. If we allow them to build a bigger ditch we
will get more sewage. Chicago has not
complied with anything it has agreed to do.
The question is: Is this sewage
and do we want it here … The water is nastier here than it is in Chicago. They have as much sewage there, but the
putrefaction is well under way when it gets down here. Down on Lake Joliet it is thick; you can’t
force a boat through it.” The conjecture
is that the first practical step in pressing Joliet’s case will be supporting a
$50,000 suit of Joliet resident Robert Mann Woods against the city of Chicago
for damage to one of his buildings from the sewage in the canal. Businesses and homes such as the one above in Lockport sat right next to the canal and were beneficiaries of whatever Chicago decided to send their way.
Also on this date from an earlier blog entry . . .
February 11, 2010 -- A 3.8-magnitude earthquake centered in a farm field near Hampshire shakes a wide area from Wisconsin to Tennessee. At first reported to be a 4.3-magnitude quake, the estimate was revised downward after data was more closely analyzed. Whatever it was, it shook a lot of people in the area awake when it occurred at 3:59 in the morning.
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