Ten things worth knowing about Chicago

Every Chicagoan collects a few stories to tell out-of-town guests. Here are ten worth keeping in your pocket, each one checked against the people who know it best.

1. The city is named for a wild onion

The word Chicago comes from a French spelling of shikaakwa, the Miami-Illinois name for Allium tricoccum, the wild leek that once grew thickly along the river. Robert de La Salle's memoir from around 1679 is the first known record of the place as Checagou, and in 1687 the explorer Henri Joutel wrote that the spot took its name from the wild garlic growing in its woods.

2. Its first settler was a Black trader from Haiti

Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, born in what is now Haiti, built a trading post at the mouth of the Chicago River sometime after 1770 and ran it with his Potawatomi wife, Kitihawa. He sold his holdings in 1800, and in 2006 the City Council officially recognized him as Chicago's founder. The story has a new chapter: on October 27, 2026, the Chicago Park District broke ground on a 3.44-acre park in his honor where the river meets the lake, planned to open in summer 2028.

3. It became a city on March 4, 1837

Chicago received its city charter from the State of Illinois on March 4, 1837, when it had about 4,000 residents. That date is why history buffs mark the city's birthday each March.

4. Every star on the flag tells a story

The city flag, adopted in 1917 after a design contest won by writer Wallace Rice, has two light blue stripes for the lake and the branches of the river, and three white bands for the North, West and South Sides. Its four red stars stand for Fort Dearborn, the Great Fire of 1871, the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the Century of Progress fair of 1933–34. The flag started with just two stars; the others were added in the 1930s. Rice gave them six points, because five-pointed stars traditionally stand for sovereign states.

5. The river runs backwards

The Chicago River once emptied into Lake Michigan, carrying the city's sewage toward its drinking water. In 1900 the newly created Sanitary District of Chicago reversed it by opening the Sanitary and Ship Canal, so the river now flows away from the lake toward the Des Plaines, Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

6. A fire made it a skyscraper city

The Great Chicago Fire started on the evening of October 8, 1871, in a barn on the city's southwest side and burned for more than a day. It destroyed some 17,500 buildings and left about 90,000 people, roughly one resident in three, without a home. Rebuilding came with new rules requiring brick, stone and terra cotta, and steel framing let buildings climb higher. William Le Baron Jenney's Home Insurance Building on LaSalle Street, finished in 1884, is widely considered the first skyscraper.

7. The winters are real, and so are the summers

The National Weather Service's 1991–2020 normals put Chicago's average January temperature at about 25 degrees and the July average at about 75, with roughly 38 inches of snow in a typical year.

8. The lakefront has a trail for walkers and another for bikes

The Lakefront Trail runs about 18 miles along Lake Michigan, from Ardmore Avenue on the North Side to 71st Street on the South Side. In 2018 it was split in two: an 18-mile path for bikes and an 18.5-mile path for people on foot, so runners and cyclists no longer have to share a single lane.

9. Two hot dogs have watched over Milwaukee Avenue since 1948

In May 1948 Maurie and Flaurie Berman opened Superdawg at Milwaukee, Devon and Nagle on the Northwest Side, and the family still runs it from the same corner. Maurie designed the building with two 12-foot hot dog figures on the roof, with blinking eyes, and customers still order from their cars and have a carhop bring the food on a tray. The Superdawg comes with golden mustard, piccalilli, a kosher dill pickle, chopped onions and a hot pepper.

10. A downtown restaurant holds liquor license No. 1

The Berghoff on Adams Street opened in 1898, after Herman Berghoff sold beer near the 1893 World's Fair. When Prohibition ended, he obtained the city's first liquor license, and Chicago still gives the restaurant the first license each year; the original hangs at the bar. The family has run it for four generations.

That makes ten. Chicagoans tend to add an eleventh of their own, usually about their favorite neighborhood, and that is a fine place to end the tour.