| Show in the saw imp a mean 0 f one on 0 AP is 0 mans afon lifetime 0 0 of 1 J s 7 ir A 7 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON N TUE city of chicago 0 o preparations tire lire going forward rapidly for tile the worlds fair which it will hold in 1033 it Is to bo be called the century of progress Pro giess and the keynote of tho the exposition will be a v visualization visualisation of 0 tile the part that the marvelous man clous advance of science in tile the past century has played in industrial pro progress g ress and la in human welfare in the way tills Is done t the 11 e exposition will be unlike any worlds fair that has ever before been held accordingly the exhibition buildings which are now in the process of construction will vill be dl different I 1 y erent from any others that have ever before been erected they s hlll represent not only the architecture of today but the architecture ot of the future they will be Imo modernly dernis tie tic to the last degree that Is all of them will be except one along the lake front where the exposition p position will be he held id there already has I 1 been een bu built it a little structure of roughhewn logs fort dearborn of tragic memory risen phoenix like from the ashes ot of more than a century ago and visitors to the worlds fair in 1033 1913 can look upon it against its background of skyscraper ck scraper lined michigan avenue and in it surrounded by the modernistic architecture buildings see not only an epitome of the history of chicago but also art an epitome of the history of 0 the whole united states lous as has been tilts this transformation of a lonely frontier outpost with less than a hundl ired white inhabitants to a metropolis of more than three million the fourth largest city in the world there remaina one amazing tact fact to make the story of Chi cagos growth sound bound like a scarce scarcely y bellev able fairy tale for till all of tills this lias bag taken place within the span of one mans lifetime 1 that man is nah neo nee num a one hundred undred li end and twenty one year old pottawatomie indian living on a reservation near aladetta Mayet tn ran kan who caos born bom in an indian village on the present site of chicago in 1809 since he was only three years old at the time ot of the port fort dearborn mas sacre lacro and the burning of the fort he does not have any recollection of that tragedy but he does remember the re establishment ot of a military post at chicago when the second fort dearborn was built in 1810 1816 and the departure of the from their ancestral lands for a new home in the west a few years later it Is problematical lema whether nah nee num will still be alive when the worlds fair Is held in 1033 and whether he be will le be able to tc come back to the scene ot of his birth if he Is still alive at that time but the fact remains that today there lives a man who could stand in it a city of teeming millions and recall tile the time when tills this spot was but little changed from what it roust must have been when the caravels caravell car avels of columbus first touched the shores of the new mcw world 1 A photograph taken at night which illustrates vividly the contrast bet between the old and the new in the for foreground reground Is one of the blockhouses of the replica of the first fort dearborn built for the worlds fair of 1933 in the background Is the famous chicago skyline as seen from lake michigan with its towering skyscrapers and its myriad of lights 2 nah nee num one hundred and twenty old pottawatomie born in an indian village on the present site of chicago still living on an indian reservation at mayetta kan 3 A century of mall mail transportation progress was dramatized in chicago recently when a message was borne from the replica of the first fort dearborn to new york by horse automobile and airplane in the photograph john manson a great grandson of the builder of fort dearborn is shown receiving the message addressed to the postmaster of new york from col john sewall he carried it to the chicago post office where it was placed with other mall mail in an automobile truck and taken to the municipal airport where etwas placed on an air mall mail plane I 1 but the survival of tills this one hundred and twenty one year old native of chicago Is not the only evidence of the amazing transformation that has taken place on the shores of lake michigan decently Becent ly there took place in chicago an incident which afforded a dramatic contrast between tho the old aind and the new through the gates ol of the rebuilt fort dearborn De arboin one morning rode john alanson SI anson dressed in the military uniform of the style worn voin by his great grandfather the builder of the original fort dearborn deal horn ile he wits wag carrying a letter addressed to the postmaster of new york city through the maze of automobile traffic on michigan an avenue he made his way to the chicago post loftice where his letter was dropped into a mall mail sack which was tossed into an automobile truck and rushed out to the municipal airport there it was taken aboard tin an air mall mail plane and that evening the letter was placed in the hands of the new york postmaster less lesa than 12 I 1 i hours from the time it had bad left fort dearborn had such a letter bem been dispatched from the fort dearborn of a century ago it would have been weeks and possibly months before it was delivered in new york for as one historian has put it from november until may port fort dearborn was as isolated from the outside world as though it were on another planet wo we have in epitome the story of the failure of one attempt made by captain whistler in december 1809 to break tills this isolation lie obtained a months leave of ab sence to journey to cincinnati today the round trip may be made and a fair days business transacted in 21 hours whistler left chicago the last of november and reached fort wayne ind december 10 much fatigued fatigue a after 11 days of balry travel through rain find and snow as lie ho tells it in a let ter the water auter was so high that Us ill further progress was prevented finding it impossible should lie proceed to be buck back at lil by the end of 0 the month lie he prepared to return to F fort ort dearborn deni born grateful to his superior tor for the opportunity accorded him as though lie he had succeeded in making the journey the ilie historian quoted in the foregoing in Is billo 1 11 quaife in his book chicago and tile the old northwest that book was published only IS 18 years ago but how bow soon in these modern times way may a statement be out of datel date I 1 today the round trip may be made and a fair days business transacted in 24 hours writes the historian in 1013 but the historian of 1031 after consulting the ahne tables of the air transport companies which now carry passengers to all parts of the united states would write it today the round trip may be made and a fair days business transacted in 12 hours and it if you would retrace captain whistlers journey to fort wayne and do it in an airplane you could cover in a little over an hour the distance it took him 11 days to make what was true of the isolation ot of the first fort dearborn was nearly as true of tile the second one day in october 1817 a year after the establishment lish ment of tile the second fort dearborn samuel A storrow who was vaa making a tour through the northwest ap feared on the north bank of the achl cago river and after entered the fort foit where he was received as one arrived from the moon writes quake the little establishment at fort dearborn u constituted a miniature world with interests intel esta and ambitions quite detached deta clied from those of the larg er world outside such were the conditions which ex isted during the early history of chicago the era eia of the two rort fort dear borns that era came to an end in 1833 with the events the centennial of which furnishes the reason tor for the exposition two years hence one of these was the incorporation of chicago as a town decided upon tit at a meeting held on august B 5 1833 at tile the sau ganash hotel botel Chi cagos first hostelry where a total of 12 votes was cast for incorporation and one against and the town election held beld five days later when 28 votes were cast electing four trustees and a president of the town board by way of contrast it may mar be remarked that in the recent election to choose a worlds fair mayor for chicago more than votes were cist the other events was as the tha convening in september 1833 of the greatest indian council ever held in chicago at which the and allied tribes ceded all their lands landl west of lake michigan and their remaining reservation in southwestern michigan a tract of some ive million acres to the united states a and agren agreed to remove beyond the mississippi river within three years M 1811 1931 western 1 wap r usi yuloo |
