Editing Chicago River (section)

===Exploration and settlement===
[[Louis Jolliet]] and [[Jacques Marquette]], though probably not the first Europeans to visit the area, are the first recorded to have visited the Chicago River in 1673, when they wrote of their discovery of the geographically vital [[Chicago Portage]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Quaife|1913|pp=22–24}}</ref> Marquette returned in 1674, camped a few days near the mouth of the river, then moved on to the Chicago River–[[Des Plaines River]] [[portage]], where he stayed through the winter of 1674–75. The [[Fox Wars]] effectively closed the Chicago area to Europeans in the first part of the 18th century. The first non-native to re-settle in the area may have been a trader named Guillory, who might have had a trading post near [[Wolf Point, Chicago|Wolf Point]] on the Chicago River in around 1778.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Meehan|first=Thomas A|title=Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, the First Chicagoan|journal=Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society|year=1963|volume=56|issue=3|pages=439–453|jstor=40190620|publisher=Illinois State Historical Society}}</ref> In 1823 a government expedition used the name Gary River (phonetic spelling of ''Guillory'') to refer to the north branch of the Chicago River.

[[Jean Baptiste Point du Sable]] is widely regarded as the first permanent resident of Chicago; he built a farm on the northern bank at the mouth of the river in the 1780s.<ref>{{cite book|last=Pacyga|first=Dominic A.|title=Chicago: A Biography|url=https://archive.org/details/chicagobiography00pacy|url-access=limited|year=2009|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-64431-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/chicagobiography00pacy/page/n20 12]}}</ref> The earliest known record of Pointe du Sable living in Chicago is the diary of Hugh Heward, who made a journey through Illinois in the spring of 1790. [[Antoine Ouilmette]] claimed to have arrived in Chicago shortly after this in July 1790.<ref>Letter from Antoine Ouilmette to John H. Kinzie dated June 1, 1839, reproduced in {{cite book|last=Blanchard|first=Rufus|title=Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest, with the History of Chicago (volume 1)|year=1898|publisher=R. Blanchard and Company|page=[https://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00blan/page/574 574]|url=https://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00blan|access-date=November 19, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121112011231/http://archive.org/details/discoveryconques00blan|archive-date=November 12, 2012|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1795, in a then minor part of the [[Treaty of Greenville]], [[Western Confederacy|an Indian confederation]] granted treaty rights to the United States, to a parcel of land at the mouth of the "Chicago River".{{refn|Six square miles centered at the mouth of the Chicago River. See Article 3 item 14 within the text of the treaty.<ref>{{cite web|author=Charles J. Kappler|title=Treaty with the Wyandot, Etc., 1795|url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/wya0039.htm#mn4|year=1904|work=U.S. Government treaties with [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indian]] tribes|publisher=Oklahoma State University Library|access-date=August 1, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101108135038/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/wya0039.htm#mn4|archive-date=November 8, 2010|url-status=dead}}</ref>|group="n"}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/477.html|title=Fort Dearborn|website=Encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org|access-date=March 2, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227032042/http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/477.html|archive-date=December 27, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref> This was followed by the [[Treaty of St. Louis (1816)|1816 Treaty of St. Louis]] and [[Treaty of Chicago]], which ceded additional land in the Chicago area.<ref>[http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/ott0132.htm#mn1 Treaty with the Ottawa, etc. 1816] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120905002041/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/ott0132.htm#mn1 |date=September 5, 2012 }}</ref> In 1803, [[Fort Dearborn]] was constructed on the bank opposite what had been Point du Sable's settlement, on the site of the present-day [[Michigan Avenue Bridge]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/477.html |title=Fort Dearborn |access-date=May 20, 2007 |last=Durkin Keating |first=Ann |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Chicago |publisher=[[Chicago Historical Society]] |pages=477 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111227032042/http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/477.html |archive-date=December 27, 2011 |url-status=live }}</ref> Lieutenant James Strode Swearingen, who led the troops from Detroit to Chicago to establish the fort, described the river as being about {{convert|30|yd|m}} wide and upwards of {{convert|18|ft|m}} deep at the place where the fort was intended to be built; the riverbanks were {{convert|8|ft|m}} high on the south side and {{convert|6|ft|m}} on the north.<ref>Journal of Lieutenant James Strode Swearingen reproduced in {{harvnb|Quaife|1913|pp=373–377}}</ref>