Fort Dearborn

Artist's rendering of a bird's-eye view of the original Fort Dearborn

On March 9, 1803, Henry Dearborn, the Secretary of War, wrote to Colonel Jean Hamtramck, the commandant of Detroit, instructing him to have an officer and six men survey the route from Detroit to Chicago, and to make a preliminary investigation of the situation at Chicago.[16] Captain John Whistler was selected as commandant of the new post, and set out with six men to complete the survey. The survey completed, on July 14, 1803, a company of troops set out to make the overland journey from Detroit to Chicago. Whistler and his family made their way to Chicago on a schooner called the Tracy. The troops reached their destination on August 17.[17] The Tracy was anchored about half a mile offshore, unable to enter the Chicago River due to a sandbar at its mouth. Julia Whistler, the wife of Captain Whistler's son, Lieutenant William Whistler, later related that 2000 Indians gathered to see the Tracy.[18][19] The troops had completed the construction of the fort by the summer of 1804;[20] it was a log-built fort enclosed in a double stockade, with two blockhouses (see diagram above).[17] The fort was named Fort Dearborn, after U.S. Secretary of War Henry Dearborn, who had commissioned its construction.

The Kinzie Mansion. Fort Dearborn is in the background.[21]

A fur trader, John Kinzie, who bought the old Du Sable property, arrived in Chicago in 1804, and rapidly became the civilian leader of the small settlement that grew around the fort.[17] In 1810, Kinzie and Whistler became embroiled in a dispute over Kinzie supplying alcohol to the Indians. In April, Whistler and other senior officers at the fort were removed; Whistler was replaced as commandant of the fort by Captain Nathan Heald.[22]

Fort Dearborn in 1850

Fort Dearborn in 1856

Following the war, a second Fort Dearborn was built (1816). This fort consisted of a double wall of wooden palisades, officer and enlisted barracks, a garden, and other buildings. The American forces garrisoned the fort until 1823, when peace with the Indians led the garrison to be deemed redundant. The temporary abandonment lasted until 1828, when it was re-lgarrisoned following the outbreak of war with the Winnebago Indians.[23] In her 1856 memoir, Wau Bun, Juliette Kinzie described the fort as it appeared on her arrival in Chicago in 1831:

The fort was inclosed [sic] by high pickets, with bastions at the alternate angles. Large gates opened to the north and south, and there were small portions here and there for the accommodation of the inmates. ... Beyond the parade-ground which extended south of the pickets, were the company gardens, well filled with currant-bushes and young fruit-trees. The fort stood at what might naturally be supposed to be the mouth of the river, yet it was not so, for in these days the latter took a turn, sweeping round the promontory on which the fort was built, towards the south, and joined the lake about half a mile below...[24]

The fort was closed briefly before the Black Hawk War of 1832 and by 1837, the fort was being used by the Superintendent of Harbor Works. In 1837, the fort and its reserve, including part of the land that became Grant Park, was deeded to the city by the Federal Government.[25] In 1855, part of the fort was demolished so that the south bank of the Chicago River could be dredged, straightening the bend in the river and widening it at this point by about 150 feet (46 m);[26] and in 1857, a fire destroyed nearly all the remaining buildings in the fort. The remaining blockhouse and few surviving outbuildings were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Fort Dearborn in 1853

The southern perimeter of Fort Dearborn was located at what is now the intersection of Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue in the Loop community area of Chicago along the Magnificent Mile. Part of the fort outline is marked by plaques, and a line embedded in the sidewalk and road near the Michigan Avenue Bridge and Wacker Drive. A few boards from the old fort were retained and are now in the Chicago History Museum in Lincoln Park.

First Presbyterian Church (Chicago), the longest continuously-operating institution in Chicago was founded in the carpentry shop of Fort Dearborn on June 26, 1833 and today is located in Woodlawn, Chicago[27]

On March 5, 1899, the Chicago Tribune publicized a Chicago Historical Society replica of the original fort.[28]

In 1933, at the Century of Progress Exhibition, a detailed replica of Fort Dearborn was erected as a fair exhibit.[29][30][31] As part of the celebration, both a United States one-cent postage stamp and a souvenir sheet (containing 25 of the stamps) were issued, showing the fort. The individual stamp and sheet were reprinted when Postmaster General James A. Farley gave imperforated examples of these, and other stamps, to his friends. Because of the ensuing public outcry, millions of copies of "Farley's Follies" were printed and sold.

In 1939, the Chicago City Council added a fourth star to the city flag to represent Fort Dearborn. This star is depicted as the left-most, or first, star of the flag.[32]

The site of the fort was designated a Chicago Landmark on September 15, 1971.[33]

An elementary school in the Chicago Public Schools system is named after Fort Dearborn.[34]

• Modern Commemorations
• 
  Fort Dearborn 1808 layout
• 
  London Guarantee Building with large relief above the entrance commemorating Fort Dearborn
• 
  A plaque on Michigan avenue
• 
  A marker showing the fort's southern perimeter

• Fort Chécagou
• History of Chicago

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fort Dearborn.

• "Site of Fort Dearborn". City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development, Commission on Chicago Landmarks.