Swimming in the Chicago River 100 years ago

Factual Questions
1

From: Mick Dumke <mdumke@chicagoreader.com>
Date: Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 10:21 AM
Subject: Fwd: Swimming in the Chicago river 100 years ago. really. they had races. from Brian Urbaszewski
To: Whet Moser <wmoser@chicagoreader.com>, mminer43@yahoo.com, Alison True <atrue@chicagoreader.com>, Kiki Yablon <kyablon@chicagoreader.com>, Lauri Apple <lapple@chicagoreader.com>
I’m up to my neck with some other things but thought I’d send this around in case someone else is inspired to blog it. Pretty great stuff.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brian Urbaszewski <burbaszewski@lungchicago.org>
Date: Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 3:01 PM
Subject: Swimming in the Chicago river 100 years ago. really. they had races. from Brian Urbaszewski
To: mdumke@chicagoreader.com

Mick,

OK this isn’t an Air pollution issue really but thought someone out there might find it fascinating. You’re probably somewhat aware of the MWRD fight over whether to disinfect our sewage or not. Gee let me think…. But a day or two ago Dennis Byrne at the Trib Ed page laughed out loud about anyone even thinking of swimming in the river. Then I found this obscure reference about there being SWIMMING RACES in the river back in 1908 (yes after they reversed it and before they had to limit the inflow from the Lake)

From Encyclopedia of Chicago

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/300014.html

Swimming marathons, held from 1908 to 1914, celebrated the changed character of the river.

Swimming marathon, Chicago River, 1908 (picture at link)

Wouldn’t it be great if the river were swimmable, LIKE IT WAS 100 YEARS AGO? Hope you can have some fun with this. Seemed like a fun story for someone to explore.

Brian Urbaszewski
Director of Environmental Health Programs
Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago
(312) 628-0245 direct
(312) 243-3954 fax

Dedicated to Community Lung Health Since 1906

Alison True
Editor
Chicago Reader
312-828-0350

2

Could be the water was worse back then; Chicagoans were made of sterner stuff a hundred years ago.

3

Anecdotally, my dad (born 1949) said he swam in the river as a kid alongside rats.

4

Where? Until relatively recently the river was so thoroughly fenced off there was no place to get in.

5

Tough to say, and he’s dead so I can’t ask. He was born in Lake Forest, but the family moved all over northeast Chicago – Uptown, Wrigleyville, Rogers Park. He went to Lane Tech but I think the stories are from when he was younger than that – 11, 12. Like I said, it’s just an anecdote, a secondhand one at that. I mainly remember this because the idea of swimming not only in the Chicago River, but also with Chicago rats, gave me the vapors.

6

Agreed on the rats. Hard to believe they had swimming contests 100 years ago but it’s not out of the question; prior to construction of the locks in the 1930s in response to a Supreme Court decision, lake water flowed in at something like 10,000 ft/min, triple what was permissible later. Cecil plans to investigate.

7

They’ve had swimming races in all sorts of rivers over the years, even ones people thought Lynne Cox, who said she swam in the Nile when it was full of shit and crocodiles. I’ve read about swims in other rivers too so it’s not unusual, especially 100 or so years ago when swimming was becoming popular.

My father also likes to tell when he was a boy, in the late 50s-60s when they would go to the local river and swim so it doesn’t seem that far fetched that people would swim in the Chicago river, especially at that time period when there weren’t a lot of pools and such.