Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Grand and Little Calumet River Ancestor: Konomick and Hegewisch

It always struck me as strange that Grand Calumet River is a lot smaller than Calumet River. It is even smaller than Little Calumet River. But it did use to be navigable. And some lakes were filled in to make more land to develop. These maps help study the changes. Where the Little Calumet River ran through swamps, it got straightened and widened. I wonder how much of this was done as part of the MWRD effort to reverse the flow of the Calumet River and how much was done as part of a 9-foot channel waterway project. Given the path of the river in the 1929 topo had the old configuration, I would say the river was "moved" by the waterway project. By the 1953 topo, the river had today's configuration.

<update>
May 2020: I learned why it was grand. It used to be all of the water in this area headed East and went into Lake Michigan on the east side of Gary, IN.
Dennis DeBruler posted
A forgotten river: Konomick River.
Lake Chicago was about 60' higher than today's Lake Michigan because ice age glaciers covered today's outlet down the St. Lawrence River. Lake Chicago drained to the Gulf of Mexico through the Des Plaines and Sag Valleys. Glacier moraines and Lake Chicago sand dunes forced the water shed of northeast Indiana to first flow into Illinois, then do a U-turn close to Blue Island and then flow back across Indiana to empty into the lake where Marquette Park is now.
This topo map almost shows this old river configuration. Konomick River existed until the channel I circled in red was dug between 1809 and 1820.
1892 Calumet and 1900 Tolleston Quadrangles @ 1:62,500
Before that channel was dug, the Grand Calumet River would have been rather grand. A watershed in northeastern Indiana would have flowed from west to east in this riverbed on its way to Lake Michigan east of Gary. But after the circled channel was dug, much of the water changed direction and flowed to Lake Michigan at the Calumet River mouth instead of the Konomick River mouth. This reduced the flow into the lake so much that sand bars from Lake Michigan closed the mouth of the Konomick River and completed the reversal. So Chicagoland reversed a river long before the famous sanitary canal reversal in 1900.
 
Dawn Marie Galtieri posted
Another good one, showing the Chicago area under water thousands of years ago, during Glenwood period (more than 12,000 years ago)

A map shows the course of the Konomick River, but the river is labelled with modern names. (I can't include the map because of copyright issues. When you click the link, note the fourth button in the upper-left corner of the viewing area is "Toggle full page".) 

Five maps from the 1800s showing the river had been changed by 1851. (LoC)

Michael Mora posted
Excerpt from great 1853 Army Engineers map of Lake Michigan shoreline, showing area that later became Southeast Chicago and surrounding regions. When railroads first crossed through oldest part of what became South Chicago, then known as Ainsworth. Thinly dotted areas closer to lakefront and around rivers must be swamp/wetlands. I think thicker dotted areas were forested. And guessing zigzag lines along lakefront mark dunelands and dashed lines further inland are Indian and/or wagon trails. Link to full map, https://catalog.archives.gov/id/200168108/5/public...
Dennis DeBruler: The map is old enough that it still shows the Konomick River (Little+Grand Calumet) entering the lake at Marquette Park.

Comments on Dennis comment on Michael's post

Paul Petraitis posted
Chicago in the 1760's, map by Hutchins
The ever-changing hydrography of the Calumet Region!
The dotted line from the Chicago/Mudlake Portage south and then southeast around the Calumet Region corresponds to Vincennes venue in Chicago and Route 3o as they moved into Indiana.
Thomas Hutchins was a Brit cartographer associated with the 8th Regiment afoot out of Mackinac that trekked through the region in 1760-62. The data from those early reconnaissance assignments was used when Hutchins finally published this map in the 1770's. By that time he'd left the Brits and became the official cartographer of the newly minted United States Of America!
[A larger excerpt of the map is in the comments.]
Marie Eenigenburg Min shared
</update>

I'm also reminded that many Chicago neighborhoods such as Bridgeport and Hegewisch were independent towns back in the days of stage coaches.
David Mireles posted
Bob Lalich Very interesting map. It shows how isolated Hegewisch was at the time. The only road in and out was Chittenden. The railroads had Hegewisch stations.
Sonny Kortvely Is there a map of the proposed housing on Torrance about 122nd north of calumet river. I hear people talk about it every now an then but never seen any maps or pictures.
Bob Lalich Sonny Kortvely, a good portion of the land north of the river and west of Torrence Ave was subdivided but I don't think there was any serious plan for a housing development.
Robert Leffingwell I wonder how many voters live at those addresses?
Paul Petraitis I was surprised to read that the calumet River ran straight north about 1/4 west of the present route in the early 1830's...a big spring freshet moved it to its present location at that time!
Steve Malachinski I would say that station was right about where the outlet from Wolf Lake is that goes towards the old mill property on Avenue O
Marty Gatton Bob Lalich... many of the city issued maps I receive at work still show the streets platted out in the swamp.

Paul Jevert shared
1880s

David Mireles commented on his post
David Mireles Circa 1881.

David Mireles commented on his post
Circa 1904

David Mireles commented on his post
Circa 1904

1929 Calumet Lake Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

1953 Calumet Lake Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Rod Sellers posted
 




3D Satellite


2 comments:

  1. Heh, I see in that exchange with Rick Sowa that no one really seems to know why the location of the O'Brien Lock was chosen. Like a dog with a bone, I've gotten a bit obsessed with finding the answer to this question, so went researching and emailing around.

    I've got a subscription to newspapers.com, so I looked up over a dozen different articles between 1940 and 1970, and not a one mentions why the location was chosen, not during planning nor during construction. In fact, we go from general planning the the 1940's to the O'Brien Lock popping up seemingly out of nowhere and already by name and already under construction by 1956-1957. The contact I got a response back from at MWRD had very general information that you could find on the website, but seemingly didn't know. Haven't heard back from USAE.

    My running theory is a rather simple one: It was probably just navigational considerations. Since they excavated this part of the river, it was simply the straightest arm of the river they could get for such a large lock. Moving it any further "up" the river, and you start effecting movement in and out of Lake Calumet and Calumet Harbor.

    But, that then opens up the remaining question of that if a stop/guard lock was needed simply for controlling levels and flow into the Cal-Sag Channel - and that's the only purpose I can see for a lock along this waterway - why they simply didn't build O'Brien at the existing lock location in Blue Island? They had to expand the canal upstream of it, anyway, so they could have done the same at the site of the old lock.

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  2. The explanation of the names of the rivers doesn't do it for me. It does not seem to be recorded when or how it happened, but the "canal" that eventually and permanently connected what we will call the Konomick (current Little and Grand Calumet rivers) and the existing Calumet and Lake Calumet happened (either by human digging/treading or a flood) in what is believed to be the early 1800's.

    It'd seem even when the two were still separate, that the downstream end of the the Konomick was no more "grand" the part of its upstream of this point, so the names still don't make sense. In fact, the upstream end had more tributaries and before it made the curve back to the east. So the widest part of the river was located before where this connection eventually happened.

    Long story short, the current names of the rivers were created well after the connection, so the people who named them wouldn't have even known a "Grand" or a "Little" Calumet in the first place. lol Well, beyond the time the systems connected, the only river it would have made sense to call "Grand" would be the current Calumet River out to the habor.

    I think this is definitely one of those pieces of history that happened "just because" and not for any logical reason.

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