A Chicago River Walking Tour: 200 Years of History

The Chicago River has been the heart and soul of the city for hundreds of years. It was here, at the mouth of this river that Chicago’s first settler built a farm. In the 1800s, the river became home to the world’s fourth largest harbor, and today it’s central to the city’s tourism industry. Which other city dyes its river green to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day?

This walking tour will take you on a loop to follow part of the riverwalk, starting and ending near the McCormick Bridgehouse & Chicago River Museum. Along the way, I’ll share the history of the area and tell you about the city’s immigrant communities, its railway infrastructure, and its infamous freight tunnel system that remains hidden underground today. I’ll also tell you how a flood convinced engineers that tunnels, not bridges, were the future of getting across the Chicago River.

On this tour, you’ll have the opportunity to:

• Hear about the river’s earliest days, from the Native People to the early settlers who built their homes along the riverbank
• Find out about the brothels, crooks and everyday workers that populated the harbor in the 1800s
• See many of Chicago’s best-known buildings, including the Wrigley Building, Marina City, and the Reid Murdoch Building
• Discover how the river has gone from clean, to polluted, and back to fairly clean over the past 200 years
• Listen to the stories of the city’s two most tragic boat disasters, including the sinking of the S. S. Eastland in 1915
• Take in one of the largest Vietnam Veteran memorials in the nation, near where this tour ends

This walk around the river’s main channel allows you to see the same sights as you would on a boat trip for a fraction of the cost. Along the way, there are excellent outdoor restaurants and bars, and nice indoor eateries along Kinzie Avenue, also on our route.

I’ll show you a side of the city and the river that’ll even surprise locals. So join me on this two-mile tour (with only a few sets of stairs) and see Chicago how it should be seen, at river level!