The name Chicago comes from "Checagou" (Chick-Ah-Goo-Ah) or "Checaguar" which in the language of the Potawatomi Indians means 'wild onions' or 'skunk'. The area was so named because of the smell of rotting marshland onions that used to cover it.   In 1673, a Canadian explorer named Louis Jolliet and aFrench-born Jesuit Jacques Marquette were the first Europeans to explore the area that became Chicago. In 1781, the first permanent settlement in Chicago was founded by Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, an African American from Sainte-Domingue, Haiti. At the mouth of the Chicago River, the settlement spot was chosen for its strategic value as a trading post.  The river connected what is now Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River. This area eventually became a  military fort, Fort Dearborn, which was regularly atacked by Native Americans until Chief Black Hawk was defeated in 1832. Chicago was officially incorporated as a town in 1833 and as a city four years later, when the population reached 4170.

The advent of railroads in the mid 19th century brought tremendous growth to Chicago.  By 1870, the population reached 300,000. One year later, disaster struck with the Great Chicago Fire, which destroyed more than 17,000 buildings and took many lives.  Chicago residents quickly rebuilt the city - more than 300 buildings had already begun construction within six weeks of the fire.  By 1893 Chicago had recovered well enough to host the 1893 World Exposition, commemorating the discovery by Columbus of America 400 years earlier.

The core of modern-day Chicago were laid out by some of the leading Chicago architects who reconstructed the city after the Great Fire.  Daniel Burnham designed a comprehensive urban plan for the city, the 1909 Chicago plan. Nicknamed 'Paris on the Prairie', it included wide boulevards and parks.