LAKE CALUMET

'Lake Calumet' is the largest body of water within the city of Chicago. Formerly a shallow, postglacial lake draining into Lake Michigan, it has been changed beyond recognition by industrial redevelopment and decay. Parts of the lake have been dredged, other parts reshaped by landfill, and the surviving fragment of the lake now, with the rest of the city of Chicago, drains into the Des Plaines River and the Mississippi River basin.

Contents

History

Today

Maps and Images

History

Lake Calumet was near the center of an extensive wetland area located within Hyde Park Township, Cook County. Because the lake's Calumet River created shipping opportunities out onto Lake Michigan, the swampy zone was rapidly filled and developed by industry in the 1880s. The Chicago neighborhood of Pullman, with its railroad passenger car factories, was sited on the lake's west shore. Steel mills began to line the Calumet River. The Illinois Central railroad was built nearby. Part of the former lakebed was used as a right-of-way for a freeway named in the lake's honor, the ''Calumet Expressway''.
Some of the landfilling work was done with steel mill slag and other industrial wastes. The presence of hazardous chemicals in much of the fill material has led to suggestions that parts of the Lake Calumet area be added to the Superfund list. ^[1] In 1996, the Calumet Expressway was renamed the Bishop Ford Freeway, honoring Chicago religious leader Bishop Louis Henry Ford at the expense of the half-infilled lake.

Today

The remains of Lake Calumet lie east of the Bishop Ford Freeway (Interstate 94) on the far south side of Chicago, between 103rd street and 130th street. The lake itself is part of the underutilized Port of Chicago. A lakeside grain elevator can be seen from the expressway.
The vestigial lake officially lies within Chicago's South Deering community area. Cleanup efforts in former landfills areas continue as of 2007.

Maps and Images

★ Placemark for Lake Calumet area (Requires Google Earth)