RUBBISHGOESHERE / DUMP

I suspect that this is one of those internet things everyone else already knows about, but a friend just pointed me to the website HistoricAerials.com. Like most other online map/satellite photo sites you just type in an address and POOF, there’s your aerial photo. What sets this site apart is that it has images going back to 1938. I’ve been using this great tool to study up on some of my favorite building sites in Chicago, such as:

ABOVE: Liquid Carbonic Corporation, 1938. BELOW: Washburne Trade School, 2007. Both images are screenshots from historicaerials.com. The crude, sloppy red outlines of the Washburne site were added by me.

Not only can you see how big the Liquid Carbonic/Washburne complex originally was, but also that there was a river running along the southern boundary of the property. Wait, what? Turns out, it was the former West Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River, which was eventually filled in or placed in sewers after the nearby Sanitary and Shipping Canal was dug out in the 1890′s. There was no mention of a river on the 1939 sewer map of Washburne that I posted about earlier–maybe it was filled in soon after 1938? But in the 2007 photo you can still see, just barely, the ghost of the river influencing property lines.

Anyways, I thought that was pretty cool.

My information about the West Fork came from The Chicago River by David M. Solzman, a terrific book that not only goes into great detail about the history of Chicago’s waterways, but also the industry and infrastructure that sits alongside or across our rivers and canals. A great reference that I find myself using a lot. I recommend it.