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| Chicago Apartment Locator Services : Chicago Apartments |  | Contents | |
| Economy |
| Chicago has been a center for commerce in the United States
for most of its modern history. Before it was incorporated as
a town in 1833 the primary industry was the fur trade. Chicago's
early explosive growth led many land speculators and enterprising
individuals to the area. Situated on the Great Lakes and with
so many new people settling the area, Chicago became an ideal
location for shipping and receiving goods. With that, many railroads
started to be built from Chicago to other parts of the country,
further aiding the growth of the city. Additionally, the building
of the Illinois and Michigan Canal helped move goods south down
the Mississippi River. |
| In the 1840s Chicago became the largest grain port in the
world, shipping food from the Mississippi Valley region which
was also growing into the largest food-producing region in the
world. In 1848 Chicago built its first grain elevator, and in
1858 there were twelve grain elevators dotting the skyline.
Carl Sandburg described Chicago as a "stacker of wheat",
and some would argue that the grain elevators were Chicago's
first skyscrapers. |
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| Chicago Board of Trade |
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| In the 1850s and 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry exploded.
Great entrepreneurs such as Gustavus F. Swift and Philip Armour
helped the area to become the largest producer of meat products
in the world at the time. By 1862 Chicago had displaced Cincinnati,
Ohio, as "Porkopolis". During the 1860s two factors
helped this development: First, the Civil War increased the
demand for food products, and Chicago's transportation network
ensured that goods could be delivered quickly to soldiers all
over the northern United States; second, meat packing plants
began to utilize ice. Before this time, meat production and
distribution facilities, otherwise known as disassembly plants,
had to shut down in the hot summer months. More operating months
meant hundreds of thousands of new man-hours in which people
could work. |
| The efficiency of Chicago's meat packing industry and its
disassembly plants inspired others such as Henry Ford when he
developed Model-T assembly lines. Today, we consider industries
such as steel, oil, and banking to be the great global market
segments, but in the 1860s Chicago's pork and beef industry
represented the first global industry. As the major meat companies
grew in Chicago many, such as Armour, created global enterprises
and communicated with divisions spread across the globe via
telegraph. |
| Modern-day futures and commodity trading markets were pioneered
in Chicago. A number of events led to this, along with Chicago's
transportation systems and geographic proximity to the rest
of the country. Massive amounts of goods passed through Chicago
from places in the Mississippi Valley such as St. Louis, Missouri.
Grain was stored in Chicago, and people began buying contracts
on it. Later, people as far away as New York City began buying
contracts by telegraph on the goods that would be stored in
Chicago in the future. From this were established the Chicago
Board of Trade (CBOT), the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME),
and the modern systems we use today for futures and commodity
trading. |
| Chicago is considered to be a Prime Accountancy, Advertising
and Legal Service Centers by the GaWC. |
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