Chicago’s waste lands: Refuse disposal and urban growth, 1840-1990

Journal of Historical Geography

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 1994, Pages 124-142

  Colten, Craig E ^a  

^a RESEARCH AND COLLECTIONS CENTER   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BUILDING FOUNDATION; LAND DEVELOPMENT; STRUCTURAL SUPPORT; URBAN GROWTH; WASTE SITE;

USA, ILLINOIS, CHICAGO;

EID: 0028552339     PISSN: 03057488     EISSN: 10958614     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1006/jhge.1994.1011     Document Type: Article

References (65)

1. General wastes consist of four main components: (1) garbage—biological wastes from homes and restaurants, (2) refuse—mixed wastes that are largely non-biological, (3) ash—wastes from furnaces and stoves using coal as a fuel, (4) industrial solids—process residue that consists of slag, sludges, and general wastage.
2. See Ian Douglas, The urban environment (London 1983) and Andrew Goudie, The human impact on the natural environment 3rd edn. (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1990)
3. A discussion of the highly varied local physical conditions is noted by Martin V. Melosi, Garbage in the City: refuse, reform and the environment, 1880-1980 (College Station, Texas 1981) 15
4. Henry W. Lawrence, The greening of the squares of London: transformation of urban landscapes and ideals Annals, Association of American Geographers 83 (1993) 90-118
5. Michael P. Conzen, The progress of American urbanism, 1860-1930, Robert D. Mitchell and Paul A. Groves (Eds), North America: the historical geography of a changing continent (Totowa, New Jersey 1987) 367
6. Mona Domosh, Controlling urban form: the development of Boston’s back bay Journal of Historical Geography 18 (1992) 295
7. David Ward, Cities and immigrants (New York 1972) 116
8. See also, Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Streetcar suburbs: the process of growth in Boston (Cambridge 1962) and Raymond A. Mohl and Neil Betten, The failure of industrial city planning: Gary, Indiana, 1906-1910 Journal of the American Institute of Planners 38 (1972) 205
9. W. B. Meyer, Urban heat island and urban health: early American perspectives Professional Geographer 43 (1991) 38-48
10. John Sheail, Underground water extraction: indirect effects of urbanization on the countryside, Journal of Historical Geography 8 (1982) 395-408
11. K. L. Walwork, Derelict land: origins and prospects of a land-use problem (London 1974)
12. Craig E. Colten, Historical hazards: the geography of relict industrial wastes Professional Geographer 42 (1990) 143-156
13. Peirce F. Lewis, Small towns in Pennsylvania, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 62 (1972) 334 discusses the conflict between an unflinching grid and topography
14. See Eric E. Lampard, The nature of urbanization, in D. Fraser and A. Sutcliffe (Eds), The Pursuit of urban history (London 1983) 3-52
15. E. K. Muller, Waterfront to metropolitan region, in H. Gillette, Jr and Z. L. Miller (Eds), American urbanism: a historiographical review (New York 1987) 105-133
16. Wendy H. Sapan, Landfilling at the Telco block, social, historical and archeological perspectives American Archaeology 5 (1985) 170-174
17. A useful discussion of locational conflict appears in William B. Meyer and Michael Brown, Locational conflict in a nineteenth-century city Political Geography Quarterly 8 (1989) 107-122. The expansion of urban sanitary engineering is recounted in Jon A. Peterson, The impact of sanitary reform upon American urban planning, 1840-1890 Journal of Social History 13 (1979) 83-103, esp. 94-95 and Stanley K. Schultz and Clay McShane, To engineer the metropolis: sewers, sanitation, and city planning in late-nineteenth-century America Journal of American History 65 (1978) 389—411. Shifting preferences for waste disposal is treated by Joel A. Tarr, The search for the ultimate sink: urban air, land, and water: pollution in historical perspective Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington, DC 51 (1984) 1-29. Administrative aspects of urban waste management are covered by Melosi, op. cit.
18. See Christine M. Rosen, The limits of power: great fires and the process of city growth in America (Cambridge 1986) and William Cronon, Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the great west (New York 1991)
19. For a brief discussion of suburban extractive activity see, Henry C. Binford, The first suburbs: residential communities on the Boston periphery 1815-1860 (Chicago 1985) 40. Land filling, or dumping, was viewed as a means of making valuable land, see Samuel A. Greeley, Garbage disposal and the economic recovery of valuable constituents of municipal wastes, Municipal and County Engineering 58 (1920) 22-26
20. C. E. Colten, Environmental development in the East St. Louis region, 1890-1970, Environmental History Review 14 (1990) 92-114
21. Lampard, op. cit.', Muller, op. cit.) Peter O. Muller, Contemporary suburban America (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1981), 37-56 and F. E. I. Hamilton, Models of industrial location, in R. J. Chorley and P. Haggett (Eds), Models in geography (London 1967) 361-424
22. Chicago City Council, Lakeshore protection plan, August 10, 1844, Box 48/Document 2180, Chicago City Council Proceedings, Illinois Regional Archives Depository, Northeastern Illinois University Library, Chicago, IL (hereafter, Proceedings, IRAD). A more complete discussion of the lakefront problem appears in Robin L. Einhorn, A taxing dilemma: early lake shore protection Chicago History 18 (Fall 1989) 34—51. See also Lois Wille, Forever open, clear and free: the struggle for Chicago’s lakefront (Chicago 1972) 26-37
23. Chicago City Council, Scavengers ordinance, April 30, 1849, Box 48/Document 5311, Proceedings, IRAD
24. Chicago City Council, Report of committee of police on bill of William Harrison, November 9, 1852, Box 88/Document 885, Proceedings, IRAD and Chicago City Council, Petition of Jacob Kuebler, March 9, 1853, Box 92/Document 1278, Proceedings, IRAD
25. Chicago City Council, Order to prosecute, May 29, 1854, Box 116/Document 442, Proceedings, IRAD
26. Chicago City Council, Petition by George P. Hansen, Health Officer, July 23, 1855, Box 144/Document 1037, Proceedings, IRAD
27. Einhorn, op. cit.
28. Richard G. Berggreen, David L. Grumman, and Paul R. Blindauer, Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon contamination in downtown Chicago fill soils, Proceedings, Association of Engineering Geologists Annual Meeting, St. Charles, Illinois, October 1991, 519-527, esp. 523. Also, Chicago Tribune, October 17, 1890, 2
29. Berggreen, op. cit., 523; Chicago Tribune, November 28, 1903. U.S. Army, Annual reports of the war department, V. 5, Report of the chief of engineers (Washington, DC 1905) 2066
30. Berggreen et al., op. cit., 523
31. Chicago City Council, Ordinance for filling pond, October 2, 1865, Box 255/Document 454, Proceedings, IRAD
32. 47 th General Assembly of Illinois, Report of the submerged and shore lands legislative investigating committee (Springfield, Illinois 1911) 143, 177
33. For a more complete discussion of the Lake Calumet industrial district see, Craig E. Colten, Industrial waste in southeast Chicago: production and disposal Environmental Review 10 (1986) 95-105
34. U.S. Army, Calumet harbor, in Report: chief of engineers (Washington, DC 1895) 2591
35. Melosi, op. cit., 42
36. Most of the construction of parks and other lakefront extensions after 1910 used dredge material. See M. J. Chrzastowski, The building, deterioration and proposed rebuilding of the Chicago lakefront Shore and Beach 59 (1991) 2-10. Dumping of dredged material and industrial waste in the vicinity of water intakes caused controversy and led to the passage of the Mann Act in 1910 (Public Law No. 245). This federal act prohibited the dumping of any material within eight miles of the Illinois and Indiana shore lines. See also, John J. Hueberg [?] and W. A. Evans to Jacob M. Dickinson, Secretary of War, June 9, 1909, Corps of Engineers, Chicago District, Pollution and Dumping, 1907-1911 Files, Chicago, Illinois
37. One of the earliest discussions of sanitary landfills or “controlled tips” touted their ability to transform waste land into useful property, see, Donald C. Stone, Dumping—an economic solution of refuse disposal Public Management 14 (1932) 350-351. Also, E. J. Cleary, Land fills for refuse disposal, Engineering News-Record 121 (September 1, 1948) 270-273 and Douglas, op. cit., 118
38. George A. Soper, John D. Watson, and Arthur J. Martin, A report to the Chicago real estate board, (Chicago, Illinois 1915) 69-70 and Workers of the Writers’ Program of the WPA, Up from the mud: an account of how Chicago’s streets were raised, (Chicago, Illinois 1941) 16-17
39. Chicago Department of Public Works (hereafter CDPW), Annual Report, (Chicago, Illinois 1902) 233
40. Depth-of-fill was determined by examining logs of 323 soil probes prepared by STS Consultants, Ltd. of Chicago. Each log indicated the amount of fill that exists over natural soil or bedrock.
41. CDPW, 1894, 228
42. Joseph M. Patterson, Report to the mayor and city council on the collection, removal and final disposition of garbage of the city of Chicago (Chicago 1906) 1-3. Maps of expanding urbanization appear in Homer Hoyt, One hundred years of land values in Chicago (Chicago 1933) Figs. 29-44
43. Citizens’ Association of Chicago, Garbage Disposal, Bulletin 28, (Chicago, Illinois 1912) 3; and Chicago City Waste Commission, Report (Chicago Illinois 1914) 15
44. Reduction is a process of heating and compressing garbage to drive out recoverable oils and solvents such as benzene and naphtha. These by-products were sold to underwrite the reduction facilities as was the solid residue, known as tankage, which served as fertilizer
45. Chicago City Waste Commission, op. cit., 15; Robert I. Randolph, The history of sanitation in Chicago Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 44 (1939) 227-240, see 240; Citizens’ Association of Chicago, op. cit. and H. A. Allen, Chicago’s half-completed garbage-reduction plant turns expense into income Engineering RecordlS (February 10, 1917) 215-218. CDPW, op. cit., 1907, 348; 1908, 313; 1912, 24. The adoption of a reduction system did not eliminate public disapproval to the siting of offensive municipal activities. There was opposition to the siting of the facility as with dumps, see Allen, op. ch., 215; and CDPW, op. cit., 1905, 293
46. Chicago’s Bubbly Creek will bubble no more Engineering News 76 (October 19, 1916) 725-727
47. Thomas J. Jablonsky, Pride in the jungle: community and everyday life in back of the yards Chicago (Baltimore 1993) 139
48. U.S. Public Health Service (hereafter USPHS), The Chicago-Cook County health survey (New York 1949) 204-205
49. Olcott’s Chicago Land Values (Chicago 1927, 1944, and 1953) and U.S. Geological Survey, various 7-5 minute topographic maps of Chicago from the 1970s
50. Murray F. Tuley, comp., Laws and ordinances governing the city of Chicago (Chicago, Illinois 1873) 83-84
51. City of Chicago, The Chicago municipal code of 1922 (Chicago, Illinois 1922) 654
52. Soldier Field is the sports arena adjacent to Grant Park. Sim White, Soldier field in Chicago, (Chicago, Illinois 1936) 6-9. Also Luke Cosme, engineer with the Chicago Park District, personal communication, October 25, 1991
53. The almost unbridled enthusiasm for the new technology is exemplified by Cleary, op. cit., 270. A more balanced assessment is offered by C. C. Spencer, Recommended wartime refuse disposal practice, U.S. Public Health Service, Supplement No. 173 to the Public Health Reports, (Washington, DC 1943), 10. Further discussion is found in Tarr, op. cit. and Melosi, op. cit.
54. Rolf Eliassen, Why you should avoid housing construction on refuse landfills Engineering- News Record 138 (1947) 756-760
55. Chicago Department of Streets and Electricity, Annual Report (Chicago, Illinois 1943) 33 and 41
56. Greeley and Hansen Engineers, Preliminary report on refuse collection and disposal related matters, for the Chicago department of streets and electricity, (Chicago, Illinois 1948) 6
57. U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, Chicago District, Lake Calumet files, Permit No. 4678 and correspondence March 7, 1945, Chicago, Illinois. Also, USPHS, op. cit., 203-209
58. Chicago Department of Streets and Electricity, Annual Report, (Chicago 1947) 35
59. Northeast Illinois Metropolitan Planning Commission (hereafter NIPC), Refuse disposal needs and practices in northeast Illinois, Technical Report 3 (Chicago, Illinois June 1963) 12
60. Clarence W. Klassen, Locating, designing and operating sanitary landfills Public Works 81 (November 1950) 42-43 and Sanitary fill standards, American City 66 (February 1951) 104- 105. In addition, the State Geological Survey reported that it was common to provide information about local hydrologic conditions to landfill developers in the early 1950s. Memo to Illinois State Geological Survey Files from Frank C. Foley, June 10, 1952, Illinois State Geological Survey, Champaign, Illinois.
61. See, Illinois Department of Public Health, Division of Sanitary Engineering, Rules and regulations for refuse disposal sites and facilities (Springfield, Illinois 1966) 3
62. CDPW, Chicago public works: a history (Chicago 1973) 146-151
63. G. M. Hughes, R. A. Landon, and R. N. Farvolden, Summary of findings on solid waste disposal sites in northeastern Illinois, Illinois State Geological Survey, Environmental Geology Notes Number 45 (Urbana, Illinois April 1971) and Colin J. Booth and Peter J. Vagt, Hydrology and historical assessment of a classic sequential-land use landfill site, Illinois, U.S.A. Environmental Geology and Water Science 15 (1990) 165-178
64. George M. Hughes, Selection of refuse disposal sites in northeastern Illinois, Illinois State Geological Survey, Environmental Geology Notes No. 17, (Urbana, Illinois 1967) 2, 22-23. This report echoed the sanitary landfill guidelines that called for siting in areas with low permeability. Public water supplies in DuPage, McHenry, and Will counties derived exclusively from groundwater sources in 1984, while Kane County pumped 84 percent of its public water from wells. James R. Kirk, Kenneth J. Hlinka, Robert Sasman, and Ellis W. Sanderson, Water withdrawals in Illinois, 1984, Illinois State Water Survey, Circular 163 (Champaign, Illinois 1985) 14
65. NIPC, Historical Inventory of Solid Waste Disposal Sites in Northeastern Illinois,” (Chicago, Illinois July 1988)