There are very few Hungarians in Chicago who know about the geographical advantages the city of Chicago possesses, or of the general history of the city. This is probably due to the fact that the average Hungarian works daily, and has very little time to devote to his own cultural development.

The purpose of this article is to familiarize those Hungarians living in Chicago, and its vicinity, with the social standing of the city and its commercial wealth.

THE FOUNDING OF CHICAGO.

In 1673, Fathers Louis Joliet and Marquette, two French priests, visited this part of the country and were probably the first white men to have ever set foot on what is now known as Chicago. When Father Joliet went back to Quebec, he told the French in Canada about the possibility that Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River might be connected.

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In 1777, John de Sauble,a trader built the first wooden house in what is now the corner of Kinzie and Pine Sts. Seventeen years later De Sauble sold this house to another trader by the name of Le Mai, who in turn sold it to John Kinzie.

The first fort was Fort Dearborn at Michigan Avenue and the river, built in 1803.

In 1812 the Indians set fire to the fort and burned it to the ground. Captain Hall and his men who were at the fort tried to escape to Detroit, but were ambushed by the Indians, and were all killed in the vicinity of what is now 18th Street. Today, in memory of these men, a monument stands at 18th Street and Prairie Ave.

in 1816 another fort was built which became the start of one of the world's foremost cities.

In 1830 a group of people decided that this would be an ideal location for a city. In 1833 it was incorporated as a village, and in 1837 as a city.

In 1848 the first railroad came into Chicago, and from that time on the city grew with leaps and bounds. The population in 1853 was 50,113 after that the 3population grew as follows:

1864	169,653
1868	252,054
1872	367,391
1880	491,516
1888	802,951
1890	1,208,669
1900	2,007,695
1910	2,189,520
1915	2,550,000
1917	2,633,000

The city today is twenty-six miles long and fourteen and one-half miles wide. It covers an area of two hundred square miles. It has 4,700 miles of streets. It uses 615,000,000 gallons of water per day. It has three hundred schools. A million and a half people get on and off trains here, and Chicago's park area is 3,750 acres.

In Chicago there are forty-three different nationalities represented. Chicago has more Swedes, Norwegians, Bohemians and Russians than any other city in the United States, and New York is the only other city that has a larger German population.