Quote:
Originally Posted by Chi-Sky21
I am just curious , what is the reason the streets are every halfblock there? Dearborn station?
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Yes. When the School Section was originally subdivided, they didn't think many people would ever live that far south of the river and Lake St. So south of Jackson, the blocks were much larger, to allow market gardens.
Hathaway's map of Chicago, 1834:
But Chicago outgrew expectations, and as also happened in Philadelphia and Washington City, new streets were cut through the large blocks to be able to sell more houselots. The narrow streets we now call Federal and Plymouth were cut through those larger blocks by 1853:
Hart's map of Chicago, 1853:
In the early 1880s, some late-arriving railroads organized the Chicago & Western Indiana R.R. to build a rail approach through the South Side and a downtown terminal, which they wanted to put at Dearborn & Jackson. The city didn't want the smoky locomotives that close to the business blocks, though, and promised to extend Dearborn south to Polk if they'd build the station there.