![[Lake scene drawing]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/lake_scene.gif)
Chicago has come a long way since it was hog butcher to the world.
There was nothing very appetizing about early Chicago. The factories and slaughterhouses that made it grow also made it stink. Rotting carcasses made the Chicago River bubble; a glass of water came with a side of cholera.
But the city grew up. The immigrants who packed its meat, dug its waterways and built its railroads moved on and were replaced by new immigrants, who settled in places that became known as Little Italy, Andersonville, Polish Village, Ukrainian Village, Chinatown, Greek Town and Pilsen.
To a would-be tour guide, Chicago is as shifty as a kaleidoscope.
The city has so many facets, in so many splendid configurations, that no one can predict what anyone will like best. Especially to a child.
During spring break, my friend Rebecca and I took our children to Chicago, with an itinerary that cunningly alternated visits to museums with visits to zoos and parks. Pitting high culture against popular culture, we knew what the biggest hits would be: the Ferris wheel, the zoo, the elevated train, deep-dish pizza, perhaps the Museum of Science and Industry.
One Memorial Day weekend, my friend Grace and I went to tour "ethnic'' Chicago. But we'd only been there a few hours before we realized everything about Chicago is ethnic.
Chicago is a mosaic, a city of neighborhoods settled by waves of immigrants who arrived to dig its waterways, build its railroads and work in its slaughterhouses. One of its first neighborhoods was Bridgeport, settled by Irish canal workers in the 1840s and the stronghold of Mayor Richard J. Daley and his son Richard M. Daley, the current mayor.
It was followed by Little Italy, Germantown, the Swedish enclave of Andersonville, Polish Village, Ukrainian Village, Chinatown, Greek Town, Bronzeville, the East Indian zone on Devon Avenue and Pilsen, a Czech quarter that now is heavily Hispanic.
Everything that’s worth doing, you can do along Chicago’s lakefront.
Seniors in Speedos climb out of Lake Michigan after swimming laps. Chess players hunch over boards in a 1957 pavilion that looks like the Jetsons’ carport. College girls fumble with kayaks in the shadow of yachts, and boys play beach volleyball.
Overhead, a biplane pulls a flapping beer banner through the sky.
Chicago is on a roll. Millennium Park is wildly popular, and the city has been crowned the western White House.
But long before Barack Obama made Chicago cool by association, people had noticed that it's a whole lot of fun. These days, tourists have to compete with hordes of conventioneers and suburbanites fleeing back to the city. Prices, of course, have gone up.
But Chicago is a populist town, and there's lots to do for free. Here are 10 tips for making a trip affordable.
The Chicago River never has run clear.
Before settlers arrived, it was a lethargic prairie river that ran through a swamp the Potawatomi called Checaugou — for “swamp weed,’’ or “wild onion.’’
Then factories and slaughterhouses turned it into a sewer. At the confluence of the main branch with the north and south branches, Bubbly Creek was named for the methane gas that rose from decomposing carcasses on the river bottom.
In the grand scheme of things, Galena, Ill., was destined to be a flash in the pan.
The flash came from the shiny lead sulfide upon which the town's fortunes were built in the 1830s, '40s and '50s; galena is the Latin word for the ore. It made many people rich, and in the 1850s, Galena, three miles from the Mississippi, was the busiest port between St. Paul and St. Louis.
The new railroad approached, but the steamboat lines made sure it stayed away from Galena. Then the lead market weakened, trade
routes shifted and the town's steep hillsides, which had given up their trees for the smelting furnaces and their limestone for
houses, began to erode into the Galena River.
So you've done Galena — the shopping, the wine-tasting, the trolley tours, the historic houses.
What now?
This mining town in northwest Illinois boomed, went bust and came back as a boutique town for urban weekenders. Now, it's returning to nature.
Visiting Chicago one December, I was bowled over by how merry everyone was.
The airport-shuttle driver, the bus driver, a UPS man on the street — they all volunteered big smiles and cheery greetings. Twice, people on the street ran after me to return a dropped glove; one wished me Merry Christmas in a Slavic accent.
Could it be . . . Chicago Nice? It was either that or pixie dust.
In the northwest corner of Illinois, there's no more cheerful place than Galena.
Today, it's known for its shops and giggling bands of women on a girlfriend getaway. But in the 1850s, it was the busiest
port between St. Louis and St. Paul, and rows of elegant homes were built with lead-mining fortunes.
Eventually, demand for lead waned, and the river connecting Galena to the Mississippi filled with silt. The town went into a deep sleep until the 1960s, by which point it had become a virtual museum.
Just 15 minutes from the tourist playground of Galena, a young woman scrubs a cast-iron pot with a corncob.
Another woman sews the ticking for a straw mattress. Over an open fire, a man carefully pours molten lead into a mold, which he opens to reveal a shiny new musket ball.
Today, the village of Elizabeth, Ill., sits on U.S. 20, the well-trod path that brings hordes of Chicagoans to this picturesque corner of Illinois, across the Mississippi River from Dubuque.
