# can anyone recommend a good, anecdote-heavyhistory of Chicago?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-recommend-a-good-anecdote-heavyhistory-of-chicago/293888>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [March 10, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-recommend-a-good-anecdote-heavyhistory-of-chicago/293888 "2005-03-10T20:10:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Freejooky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ba8739/32.png) [@Freejooky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freejooky)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-anyone-recommend-a-good-anecdote-heavyhistory-of-chicago/293888/1 "2005-03-10T20:10:36Z")

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Can anyone recommend a basic book on the history of Chicago? I want a basic overview of the city’s history, but not a ridiculous, bloated, 1,000+ page tome that gives a huge biography of every last person who ever set foot in the city.

I’d like something that will give me a basic overview of how the city was founded, developed, while touching on milestones like the fire and illustrating sociocultural trends that shaped the city, etc. I’d like it to have neat, weird anecdotes like how that guy supposedly drove his ship aground off of the Chicago river and then lived in it like a house (?), and I’d like to learn (fictional example) that Montrose rd. is named after “Tolouse Montrose, the french dilettante who flew his hot air balloon from Paris to Chicago before settling in…” and so on.

Any ideas? Please fill me in.