By 1855, Chicago was a growing city encountering problems with
its watersupply and sewage disposal. In response to cholera and
dysentery epidemics, the Chicago Board of Sewage
Commissioners selected Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough, designer of
Boston’s water distribution system, to solve Chicago’s public health
crisis. Chesbrough, a self-trained engineer, designed and oversaw
construction of the nation’s first comprehensive sewer system,
allowing the city to continue to grow.

Chesbrough’s planned system relied on gravity flow, but downtown
streets were too low to drain into the river. Large brick sewers were
built above the existing ground level and then covered, raising the
city’s street level as much as ten feet. The raising of Chicago in the 1850s and 1860s drew world-wide interest.

Sewage still flowed into the lake, however, and in 1864, Chesbrough began a
two mile tunnel, 60 feet under the lake, out to a new intake crib. The dramatic
scheme brought the city pure, clean water and was hailed as an engineering
wonder.

As the city’s chief engineer for over 20 years, Chesbrough also oversaw
construction of street tunnels under the busy river and the deepening of the
Illinois and Michigan Canal, preparing the way for the first successful river
reversal in 1871.

Chesbrough lived here, at 933 (formerly 317) North LaSalle Street in 1874.