• Approaches
    • Blog
    • Traders and Priests
    • Something like a theory
  • Corridors
  • Devices
    • Definitions
    • Glossary
    • The FTZ-Device
  • Narratives
    • Mud Lake
    • Wetlands to Tar Sands
  • Walks
    • Walk of the Divides
    • Resiliency and Hope in South Chicago
    • Port of Chicago / Lake Calumet
    • Energy Walk
    • Remember Kalamazoo – BP Protest in Whiting
    • Choking Points in the Supply Chain
    • Ottawa Sands
  • Maps
    • Map Archive
    • Foreign Trade Zones
    • Southwest Corridor (all)
  • Contributions
    • Sarah Lewison
    • Steve Rowell
    • Laurie Palmer
    • Sarah Ross
  • Events
    • Calendar of excursions & workshops
    • Project Room at ThreeWalls
    • First ideas
    • Sketches
  • Bios & Links
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marquette-joliet
Marquette_Joliet-painting
Lac des Illinois-1675
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Site of Fort Dearborn
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Sanitary Canal and Railroad
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Transformers
Riverscape at canal origins site Ashland Ave

this is where we start with
Path Dependency


Chicago Portage

Starting from Calumet Harbor in South Chicago and stretching to the Joliet area is a loosely aggregated complex of transportation facilities, distribution centers and industrial sites which we call the Southwest Corridor. This is the local version of the world economy; and it expands to national, continental and global scales. But how did the Southwest Corridor emerge? In what history is it inscribed? Along what pathways did it develop?