Native American routes: the ancient trails hidden in Chicago’s grid system
Many of the city’s roads began as indigenous pathways – just one example of Native American infrastructure that helped make Chicago a successful city
At 65, Chicago’s American Indian Center is the oldest urban indigenous center in the US. Its current retrospective highlights its importance to the city and is intended to serve as “evidence of the Native experience, existence, and survival.” But there is an easier way to see the enduring indigenous influence on Chicago – simply walk a few blocks east to Clark Street.
Named for George Rogers Clark, whose brother William was one half of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Clark Street was formed during the tail end of the ice age and has been a key trail for thousands of years. Its irregularity is an unnoticed but integral reminder of the many tribes that once called the area home, and a fitting example of the erasure of the Native influence on the city’s development.
Native people gave European settlers the ways and means of transportation. We haven’t gotten much in exchange
The whole idea of imposing a grid on this land is from one point of view kind of laughable
Related: Visible darkness: the shadowed streets of Chicago – in pictures
