Bridgeport: A Diversified Economy

The City of Chicago, through the Department of Planning and Development and other agencies both public and private, is currently pursuing a strategy of diversified commercial and industrial development. This might have been termed the Bridgeport Model. The area in which Bridgeport is found developed into one of the most dense and diversified industrial based economies in the city.

The resilience of Bridgeport as a neighborhood stems in part from the diverse industrial economic base of the wider local area. While the mix of this base gradually changed over time, the diverse nature of it is longstanding. Bridgeport occupies an excellent location. Before the town came into being, it was the eastern end of the principal portage route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi river; then it became a canal station and was also an early rail station. This locational advantage attracted industrial firms, large and small. Bridgeport was close to the Loop and sandwiched between the major south/southwest transportation corridors. If a Bridgeporter needed work, employment could be found in or near the neighborhood; or one could always travel to a more remotely located job in a reasonable amount of time. Industry and the town grew slowly at first, but the stage was set early for the phenomenal wave of growth that would eventually sweep the community.

 

Canal, quarry, and farmland

In the early years, quarry related labor (The quarry was opened up to provide stone for the improvement of Chicago Harbor in 1833.) and labor for the building of the Illinois & Michigan Canal (begun 1836) provided the economic seed. Local farming was another early occupation -- the Lee farm had produced for Fort Dearborn long before the canal, and later the area was noted for its extensive cabbage patches. When the canal opened, the "Port of Bridgeport" provided continuing employment.

In 1851 the Illinois Stone Company purchased the interests of the Bridgeport quarry and also the lime kiln that had already been in operation there. Soon afterward one of the owners, Marcus Cicero Stearns, pulled out of the larger company. Stearns took as his share of the business the Bridgeport quarry, whereafter it continued to be operated under his ownership and was known as Stearns' Quarry. (Only in recent years has this been shut down as a quarry.) The canal facilities at Bridgeport included the locks, the pumping station (meant to keep the canal in water), and some related cargo facilities. The collector's office was here as well. The Bridgeport collector's office had the highest payroll of any station along the canal. John Harris Kinzie (son of John Kinzie, fur trader and Chicago pioneer) was the collector in the early 1860s. Many privately run businesses were focused about the canal lock site -- catering to the needs of the river and canal traffic handlers, the livestock drovers, and the residents of the area. In 1864 there were seven saloons located in the vicinity of the canal lock/Archer Road, according to the city directory for that year. Twelve more were spread along Archer Road to Dyer (Halsted) street; another five were found closer to South (Twenty-second) street and Archer Road. Patrick H. Joyce opened a hotel and boarding stable for business in 1867 near the lock site.      

Taverns were in the class of those businesses used by sailors, drovers and residents alike. Grocers, on the other hand, were more likely to be frequented by the residents. In 1864 eighteen grocers were found in or near Bridgeport, six of them by the canal, one near South (Twenty-second) street and Archer, and the rest spread out along Archer Road between these two points. A number of small businesses called Bridgeport home. For example, in the area between about Dyer (Halsted) street and the canal lock, the following businesses were found: three blacksmiths, a boat/yawl dealer, two boat and ship yards, a dry goods merchant, four cooperages, a flour and feed dealer, an ice dealer, two harness makers, three soap and candle makers, two tallow dealers, a tanner, a wagon maker, a wine/liquor dealer, two meat markets, two boot and shoe makers, and a boot & shoe retailer. In the eastern portion (some of which is now located in Armour Square) we find: a dock builder, two blacksmiths, a sheet metal smith, a steel works, a boot and shoe retailer, a tanner, a saddle/harness maker, a wagon maker, two wood/coal yards, a brewer, a dry goods dealer, and a merchant tailor.   

 

Bridgeport Packers

Animal slaughtering was one of the earliest (and longest running) economic activities. Many a herd was driven up Archer Road from the southwest and from the south (Blue Island Plank Road, thence Archer) before most of that traffic fell to the railroads. Oramel S. and Roselle M. Hough built a large packing house on Lime (Green) street near the river in the 1850s. While more important to "Back of the Yards" and "Canaryville," the opening of the the Chicago Union Stock Yards in 1865 provided plenty of jobs that many Bridgeporters gravitated to. The big meat "disassembly" factories made famous by the large packing companies companies like Swift, Armour, and others, however, were not at the stockyards in the early years of operation. Chicago Union Stock Yards was principally livestock exchange market. Packing houses were located in the surrounding neighborhoods. In 1871, just before the Great Chicago Fire, Bridgeport had a major, though more localized, fire of its own -- at the Armour packing house near Halsted street and the river. At that time it was the largest such plant in the city. Robinson's Atlas of Chicago (1886) shows that the downtown provision dealer, J. B. Turner, had his packing plant located on Archer avenue by Poplar street. This was in the "Healy's Slough" (named after Robert Healy, an old farmer) neighborhood near the quarry. In the southern part of Bridgeport, Christian and Louis Wahl operated a huge glue factory on the South Fork of the South Branch, just south of Thirty-first street. This plant was sold to Armour and Swift in 1884 and continued to operate as the Armour Glue Works. See an advertisement for the former company from the mid 1860s below.

Wahl & Lighthall Glue Works

First the canal and later the railroads spurred the development of some other basic industries. The largest influence brought about by the canal in terms of local employment during the latter part of the 19th century was in the development of the lumber industry, not only of itself, but also of the related businesses that sprouted up as a result. The first railroad to open was the Joliet & Chicago railroad in 1857, followed in 1858 by the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago railway. The Joliet & Chicago paralleled Archer Road, and the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago ran the length of the eastern margin of Bridgeport along Stewart street.

 

Grain and lumberland

The canal was instrumental in developing the lumber trade of Chicago and the Great Lumber District -- most of which was located on the left bank (i.e: north side) of the river opposite Bridgeport. Lumber firms were situated on the right bank in Bridgeport proper as well. The firm responsible for development of the lumber district, the South Branch Dock Company, was incorporated in 1859.      During the 1860s, slips intended for lumber vessels were dug out by the company perpendicular to the river. The blue clays here were of commercial quality, so before the lumber companies came here, this was the site of several brick dealers. About 1868 lumber firms began moving their yards into this area. In the early 1880s the new lumber district was filled out. Expansion to the west had been precluded by the South Branch Industrial District, which had been established about the same time as the lumber district had, but it saw little use before the Chicago Fire. Because the industrial district closed off that area to the west, the lumber district began expanding along the South Fork in the early 1880s, toward the glue works and the livestock yards. That meant brick yards, planing mills, lumber dealers and so fourth made this their home. This was still not enough room for the lumber firms, so they leap-frogged to South Chicago by the Calumet river.

Like lumber, grain was a staple canal-going commodity. Five major grain elevator operations were situated in the Bridgeport area: the Chicago and St. Louis elevator at Halsted street and the river; the Danville elevator at Ashland avenue and Levee street (this street ran along the Illinois and Michigan canal); Dennis Sibley's elevator at Thirty-first and Stewart avenue, which was along the railroad right-of-way; the National elevator at Twenty-fourth street and Archer avenue; and the Wabash elevator at Thirty-third and Waterville (now Benson) streets. Additionally, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad had an elevator on one of the slips opposite Bridgeport. Facilities for handling coal, stone, sand and so forth were also located along the waterways.    

In terms of volume, 1882-92 were the peak years of lumber traffic. Thereafter, lumber traffic coming through Chicago fell sharply, as timber stands in the the upper Great Lakes region were found less and less along waterways, and the forests as a whole were being quickly depleted. Nevertheless, the lumber business continued to be important in the local area even after the turn of the century -- not in merely raw lumber, which had been the case when the lumber district had first set root, but also in semi-finished and finished wood products, such as shingles, lath, and furniture. With the diminishing significance of the lumber trade, though, manufacturing began to take on a new importance. Indeed, wood and meat products themselves were more and more resembling manufactured or processed items rather than simple raw materials meant to change hands.

 

Manufacturing

Even though Bridgeport could be in the packing house hall of fame, meat slaughtering jobs were not the only work available. The Union Rolling Mills, one of the biggest employers in Bridgeport for several decades, opened on Archer Road at the left bank (west side) of the South Fork of the river in 1865 -- the same year as the Chicago Union Stock Yards had opened. This was the first large industrial concern to locate in Bridgeport. It was also a prominent fixture in the life and identity of Bridgeport, as in evidence in Finley Peter Dunne's fictional Mr. Dooley chronicals (see the ethnic chapter). In 1868-9 American Bridgeworks established a plant at Egan avenue (Thirty-ninth street, now Pershing road) and Stewart street, which was on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago railway. This is one of the early industries that had located away from the canal or river.

The addition of street (horse) cars added to the flexibility of location initiated by the railways. The trunk (or steam) railroads handled mainly freight and intercity passengers, and later suburban riders. The street cars, on the other hand, moved people. Those who earned the lowest wages usually lived within walking distance of their places of employment, while the more skilled workers earning higher wages could afford to ride the street cars on a daily basis. Many different types of jobs were already found in Bridgeport after the Civil War. According to the 1870 census, for example, occupations listed among the people of the Sixth Ward (comprised of today's communities of Bridgeport, McKinley Park, and Armour Square) included: bridge builders, cabinet makers, carpenters, cigar makers, store clerks, coachmen, coopers, copper smiths, engine builders, grocers, laborers, lumber inspectors, omnibus drivers, railroad brake men, other railroad employees, teamsters, tinsmiths, and others. Female positions included: domestic servants, dressmakers, and housekeepers.

The development of manufacturing in Bridgeport was stimulated by the Chicago Fire of October 1871. Factories located in the central city began moving out after the fire. For one thing, they could not build any wooden sheds and the like, due to a new fire prevention ordinance. The same applied to homes, and most workers could not afford to build the brick or stone ones stipulated by the ordinance, so they were moving farther out at the same time as the factories were. In 1872, for example, Marinus Vanderkloot moved his recently founded iron works to Twenty-sixth and Halsted streets. Other factories sprouted up along the canal and riverways, the railroads and their spur tracks.

To the northeast of Bridgeport, plenty of employment was available in the industrial area along the South Branch of the Chicago river. An area thick with industrial concerns was located along Archer from Bridgeport and the river bend to State street and all the way down the river to downtown. The river bend to State street segment (in today's Armour Square) was easily accessible since Bridgeport was the terminus of the Archer avenue horse car line. The Halsted street bridge opened in 1860, and a street car line came across in 1877, providing for better access to the lumber district (and the immense railroad facilities near 16th street) to the north and at once made the Chicago Union Stock Yards to the south much more accessible.

 

The roots of the industrial district

In the newly begun tradition of districting, such as the Chicago Union Stock Yards and the so-called Great Lumber District, an industrial district, known as the South Branch Industrial District grew in great strides immediately following the Chicago Fire. Located to the west of Lisle (or Reuben street, now Ashland avenue) on both sides of the canal, by 1873-74 thirteen manufacturing firms and some thirty brickyards were found here. The Mc Cormick Reaper Works was one of them, along with iron or metal manufacturers and railroad equipment suppliers. The South Branch district had been planned by Samuel J. Walker as early as 1854 (just before the Joliet & Chicago railroad was chartered), when he had purchased over 1400 acres of land on both sides of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. But before the fire only three firms were doing business here. Like the lumber district, the South Branch company excavated a number of slips (on the West Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago river in this case) and laid private railway spur tracks between them. Most brick yards relocated to this area.  The remainder of the 1870s saw little in the way of new industry here due to an economic bust period. By 1880 or so, the economy had revived and business began growing again. By 1887, the Bridgeport economy was more diverse than ever before.

In 1887, ten years after the Halsted street car line opened, the Bridgeport general area was home to four planing mills, eighteen lumber dealers, thirty-one coal and wood dealers, six cooperages, twelve blacksmiths, four horse-shoers, six harness and horse furnishing shops, two teaming and draying operations, three wagon makers, thirty-nine boot and shoe makers/retailers, five hardware and cutlery stores, a soda water manufacturer, thirteen flour and feed dealers, ten pork and beef packers or provision dealers, fifteen bakeries, well over a hundred grocers, numerous meat markets and saloons, quite a few tailors, and even a florist.    

While an economic slowdown in the 1890s reduced growth, the area had not ceased to develop by the turn of the century. Immigrants continued to pour in, mainly from eastern Europe during this period. The area south of Thirty-first, in particular, grew rapidly. Industry was set to expand. The Chicago Junction Railway, having all the rail traffic that could be had out of the Union Stock Yards, extended its rails and began to promote the land along them for industrial uses. In 1905 came the inauguration of the Central Manufacturing District, which was the first planned industrial park in the nation. The railway company's experience with the stockyards  no doubt gave rise to the planned nature of the district. See sections below for a brief sketch and some views of the so-called "Great Central Market" and other industrial views.

Central Manufacturing District of Chicago

Industrial views of Bridgeport, 1900-10s

 

Industrial peak and decline

Industry, even after the Central Manufacturing District filled up, continued to develop. Factories and warehousing operations supplanted the waning lumber and later the meat packing industry. Eastern industrial sections stopped growing by about 1920 (in Armour Square, especially), but expansion continued in the areas adjacent to Bridgeport, such as New City (better known as "Back of the Yards"), Mc Kinley Park, and Brighton Park. Portions of Bridgeport's Central Manufacturing District also saw redevelopment in the 1940s and 1950s. The stockyards and related firms in the area employed roughly 30,000 persons in the early 1940s (which included workers on all sides of the Union Stock Yards). While local figures have not been compiled, presumably Bridgeport's increasingly diversified economy wooed workers away from the less desirable packing jobs.

The late 1940s to the early 1950s represent the peak years of industrial activity near Bridgeport. Starting in the late forties through the mid-fifties the major packing companies relocated to Midwestern states further west. The number of Bridgeport workers at the yards had been dwindling long before the yards closed in 1971, so Bridgeport was much less affected by the closure than poorer neighborhoods such as the Douglas community area. A few small meat processors, though, still exist in the area even today. Waterborne traffic (going via the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal by then) was still a considerable commerce in the 1950s. Most of the water dependent businesses were located west of Ashland avenue, centered on two large terminals -- the North Pier River Barge Terminal (at Western avenue/Sanitary canal) and the John I. Hay company (on Robinson street, just west of Ashland avenue/Sanitary canal). An estimated 550 plus manufacturing and related establishments were located within a short distance of the two (of six major Chicago) terminals.   The following table gives employment figures for the major industrial districts adjacent to Bridgeport in 1951.

Industrial district establishments and employment near Bridgeport, 1951
Classification	Armour Sq.	CMD	Stockyards
Manufacturing	44	69	66
Storage	12	23	18
Heavy service	7	7	11
Transportation	18	2	9
Total establishments	81	101	104
Number employed	2970	11498	31953
Table 2

  
   

Waterborne commerce, however, has declined since then. Truck and inter-modal oriented rail traffic, on the other, hand has increased dramatically. A motor freight terminal in Mc Kinley Park had been one of the first of two established in Chicago. Bridgeport is the "tip of the iceberg" of an extensive zone on the southwest side devoted to such inter-modal facilities. Many of these, though, are land-extensive, low-intensive uses such as ocean/train-container and semi-trailer yards. While this represents a reduction of employment throughout the area, there have also been sections of "industrial renewal." The Stockyards district in particular -- despite some environmental difficulties -- is slowly being remade into a first-class industrial park. In fact the current city industrial policy, implemented under Mayor Richard M. Daley, might be owed in part to the redevelopment of the Stockyards district. According to Melvin Holli:

During his campaign for mayor, Rich Daley dismissed the need for an urban industrial policy as a modern-day version of cargo culting (a reference to South Pacific primitives who hoped to bring down big shiny birds, [World War II] airplanes, and their goods by grubbing out mock airstrips in the jungle). But by his reelection in 1991, Daley had flip-flopped completely and came out in support of "Planned Manufacturing Districts." Why? Young Rich saw how new businesses and industries were moving into cleared spaces of a one-mile-square rubble heap that had once been the city's fabled stockyards and how they had began a phoenix-like revitalization of that region. Seeing was believing for Rich, who then lived in the nearby neighborhood of Bridgeport.       

Other developments have been fraught with problems. One particular recurrent failure has been the "Produce" or "Wholesale Food" distribution center, slated for the South Branch Industrial District just west of Ashland avenue. Plans have been proposed and tried numerous times over many years but have amounted to nought. The last failed attempt was made in the early 1990s. Northern sections of Bridgeport fall within the new Pilsen Industrial Corridor, which is comprised of those sections along the South Branch of the Chicago river, including the I & M canal origin site, former Stearns' Quarry, and the river bend area south of Twenty-second street in the current community areas of Bridgeport, McKinley Park and the Lower West Side.     

 

The growth of the service sector economy

The service sector has always been an important ingredient in the Bridgeport economic menu; though the huge industrial-oriented sector has overshadowed it. In the canal days, facilities for tending to the needs of sailors, cargo handlers, and livestock drovers (and their horses) are notable as were a variety of businesses serving local residents. Ethnic shops became important at an early time.

Irish and German proprietors opened up their own shops, initially along Archer Road. Especially numerous were grocers and taverns, followed in time by a proliferation of meat markets. The newer south/eastern European immigrants were quick to follow suit.

In the two decades prior to and about the same time the Central Manufacturing District had been founded, Polish, Lithuanian, and soon enough Italian immigrants were opening their own businesses. Polish shops were opened up on first on Thirty-second and Laurel (Morgan) streets and later on Archer avenue. Lithuanian businesses were mainly on Halsted street centering on Thirty-third street and some others on Thirty-third street or Auburn street (Lituanica avenue). Italians opened their shops in the northeast section of Bridgeport, particularly on Twenty-sixth street. Several were located to the east on Wentworth avenue as well. Generally speaking, most businesses in Bridgeport were located on the street car streets, such as Archer, Halsted, Wallace, Morgan, Twenty-sixth, Thirty-first, and Thirty fifth; although grocers and taverns were scattered all over. Some of Bridgeport's east end residents shopped at stores on Wentworth avenue in today's Armour Square.

Archer avenue and Halsted street were the principal business streets. A shopping district (or 'center' as they came to be called) eventually developed at Halsted and Thirty-fifth streets; it was well developed as such by 1911 and continued to be a significant retailing district into the 1960s. Other writers have noted that this was not a large one. Several possible reasons can be identified. One theory is that Bridgeport was a lower income community and could not support a large shopping district. Such explanations tend to be more presumptive than real. Bridgeport had a fairly large population, and not all Bridgeporters were in low income brackets. Moreover, the Englewood neighborhood, which had the largest business district on the South side, had a lower median income (at least by the 1950-60s) than Bridgeport did. Another more compelling anecdotal explanation stems from Bridgeport's location. A street car ride put the Loop, the Maxwell street market, the Forty-seventh and Ashland shopping district ("Back of the Yards"), and the Sixty-third and Halsted business district of Englewood within easy reach. Yet this isn't the full story.

 

Bridgeport local retailing  

Since the Bridgeport community area was a collection of ethnic neighborhoods, ethnic businesses played a pervasive role in the local economy. Thus Bridgeport had little reason for a centralized shopping district. Rather, Bridgeport shopping was composed of a quilt-work of small districts and scattered stores. The Works Project Administration Chicago Land Use Survey of 1939 had found 1103 residential-with-business uses. Purely residential uses amounted to 5177, while purely commercial uses amounted to a total of 258. (Cf. Table 3 and Table 4 for details.) In terms of dwellings, rather than numbers of land uses, nearly thirteen percent were connected with a business in 1940. For comparison, New City had over twelve percent of such dwellings, and fifteen percent of those in Armour Square fell into this category. In contrast, Brighton Park (which had a similar ethnic make-up) had under eight percent of its dwellings connected with a business. The city average in 1940 was five percent. (Cf. Table 5 for details.)

In terms of sales, Bridgeport did a brisk business until the 1950s. The 1948 Census of Business reported annual sales of over 117 million dollars, which was a large figure at that time. Bridgeport had just over one percent of the city's population in 1950 and just over three percent of the city's sales outside the Loop in 1948. In comparison, Englewood, a major railroad junction, had sales of over 150 million dollars (more than four percent of the city's sales while having under three percent of the city's population). But Englewood, the site of the South side's largest retailing district, was an exceptional case. New City's 1948 annual sales were over 70 million dollars, but New City had nearly thirty thousand more residents. Brighton Park's sales amounted to nearly 31 million dollars and was only about five thousand shy of Bridgeport's population in 1950. (Cf. Table 6 for details.)

Over the next decade, however, Bridgeport retailing fell drastically. In 1948 Bridgeport had 753 retail stores, again with sales of over 117 million dollars. By 1958 the number of stores was down to 532 and sales had dropped to roughly 39 million dollars. In contrast, sales in neighboring Armour Square, though small, decreased only slightly. Sales in Englewood, still the largest retail center on the South side, decreased by six percent. Sales in New City registered a small increase. Those in Brighton Park had grown by over twenty million dollars (up seventy percent), and sales in some outlying areas at the far end of the Archer avenue corridor had more than tripled. In terms of dollars, Bridgeport lost over 78 million sales dollars, while the total increase of the combined communities of Archer Heights, Gage Park, Garfield Ridge, and New City was nearly 78 million dollars. (Cf. table 7 and and table 8 for details.) By this time over half of Bridgeport retailing was being done at the Thirty-fifth and Halsted business district. The reason that this had developed as the largest commercial area was owed to two factors. Firstly, the main Lithuanian business area coincided with the northern part of the district. Secondly, it was situated between ethnic neighborhoods. The Irish neighborhood was directly south; the Polish neighborhood was a short distance west, as was the Central Manufacturing District; German neighborhoods were either east or west; and the Italian neighborhood was to the northeast. In short it was centrally located. (Cf. table 9 for details of the district.)

Any number of factors could influence the drop in retailing. Without a detailed study, the explanation is speculative. Czechs, Poles, and Lithuanians were moving to communities like Gage Park, Chicago Lawn, and other localities, so persons moving out of the community could be one possible cause. But the population of Bridgeport declined by only about 10 percent, while sales had fallen by two-thirds. It could have been that the richer families were the ones leaving, but median income had risen over the same course of time. The retailing category with the largest decrease (-46%) was the food store group (including meat markets, grocers, and a few other types) and might be said to owe to the growth of chain grocery stores. As a counter anecdote, the next largest decrease came from the eating and drinking establishment group (-36%), and this would not be caused by increased competition from chain stores outside the community. So why did retailing plummet?

 

The decrease in local retailing explored

Only a tentative explanation can be offered here. In 1948 Bridgeport had a percent of city sales well in excess of its percent of city population, whereas New City, for example, had a rough equivalency. Outlying communities, such as Brighton Park and Archer Heights had city sales percentages below those of their population percentages. Bridgeport, then, was apparently a place that people were traveling to for shopping. The outlying areas were under-served by comparison. The visiting shoppers were likely young families, whose householders had once lived in Bridgeport and continued to go back to the old neighborhood but fell out of the habit of shopping there once new businesses grew in the newer communities. Generally speaking, the residents of the newer communities had higher median incomes than in Bridgeport, so the loss was more pronounced.   Another factor that may have been more important was the decrease in employment in the meat-packing and related industries, particularly the jobs at the Glue Works in Bridgeport's case. Many employees of the stockyards area had already moved to southwestern communities west of Western avenue. When these employees no longer traveled to stockyards area jobs, shopping in Bridgeport would have required a special trip, which presumably fewer and fewer people were willing to make as the 1950s wore on. It may have also been that Bridgeporters, with higher median incomes than ever before, were themselves shopping elsewhere, but the stronger factor would appear to have been the loss of visiting shoppers.

 

Changes in occupations and economic branches of work

Over the four or five decades from 1940/50 to 1990, the employment picture of Bridgeport was altered significantly. This can be seen as a trend of gradual economic betterment over the long-term. The first residents had been nearly all laborers, then came a movement from low paid primitive industrial work to well-paid, skilled industrial positions, and, from the 1950s onward, came increased representation in other fields.

In 1950 nearly forty-four percent were employed in the economic branch of manufacturing. The retail-related branch came second at seventeen percent. In the 1958-60 period roughly over half of those employed in retailing worked in the local area. Transportation was third-ranked at about thirteen percent of those employed. Manufacturing and retailing have continued to hold the top two spots, but retail had become the top category by 1990 at twenty-three percent. Those employed in manufacturing by then had dropped to twenty-one percent of the number employed. Transportation-related work (under seven percent) was in sixth place by 1990, while professional work was in third place, and finance/insurance/and real estate (FIRE) related employment came in fourth. (Cf. table 10 for details.)

In terms of occupation (rather than economic branch, as above) the story is similar. Workers in operative (e.g. a machinist is an operative) occupations made up thirty-four percent of the employed workforce in 1940. Those classified either in laboring occupations or in clerical occupations were about eighteen percent each. By 1980, percentages employed in operative versus clerical occupations had flip-flopped (over thirty-two percent for clerical and over eighteen percent for operative). Service-related occupations went from under ten percent to fourteen percent over the same period. By 1990 service-related occupations reached nineteen percent of the total employed workforce. Percentages working in professional classifications in 1960 were more than double what they had been in 1940. The 1960 figure had doubled again by 1980, reaching eight percent. In 1990 professionals hit twelve percent; whereas laborer classifications had fallen to six percent of the employed workforce. The share of the work force in government positions peaked in 1980 at fourteen and one-half percent, falling back by 1990 to about the same level as in 1970 (about twelve percent). Median income has consistently risen over the period -- from less that four thousand dollars in 1950 to over thirty-thousand dollars per year in 1990. All in all, forty-nine percent of Bridgeport workers are now classified as working in white-collar occupations. (Cf. Table 11 and the summary table for more detailed figures.)

To sum up a long story, the economic evolution of Bridgeport has been one of increasing diversity as well as a gradual expansion of the economic means of Bridgeport citizens. This has taken place even when many of the young and upwardly mobile members of the community had moved on. At the same time, Bridgeport has had a high number of long-time residents. In 1970, for example, twelve percent reported living in the same home as they had in 1949; ten percent had reported always living in the very same home.       This set of circumstances is owed to many factors -- jobs were there, alternative employment was always reasonably near and could be reached without the need to move, since Bridgeport has always occupied a relatively strategic location. Bridgeport was historically an ethnically-based community. Residents weren't so quick to leave the solid old neighborhood, even if they could afford to. Today the economic picture in Bridgeport can be viewed with a renewed sense of optimism: the new rail transit line has prompted interest in the community, the Stockyards Industrial Park is now attracting new industry, and the Pilsen Industrial corridor, part of which includes Bridgeport's river front, is being set for redevelopment. Local shopping is not what it once was, but the local Mexican businesses have pumped some new life into the tired business district on Halsted street. The old Archer avenue district, on the other hand, is still waiting for better days.

---

Ethnic History of Bridgeport

Canal construction period

The coming of the canal to the fur-trading outpost of Hardscrabble changed it forever. Before then the area was a mixture of French-Indian and frontier American fur dealers and traders. (Cf. Early History) Once the canal was on the way to becoming reality, so too was urban American Bridgeport. In time, for a time, it would become the centerpiece of industrial Chicago. As such, Bridgeport was a magnet for immigrant labor.

The canal commissioners, needing a vast supply of labor to work the mammoth project had to turn to the east; there was not nearly enough man power in all of northern Illinois. Recruiters attracted experienced laborers who had worked on the Erie canal. The chief engineer, William Gooding, had himself been an Erie canal builder. Advertisements were placed in eastern newspapers, and many laborers were recruited fresh upon their arrival to the United States. Most of them were Irish, followed by Germans and thirdly Norwegians.

When the construction slowed in 1839 and then ground to a halt between 1841-43, canal contractors and laborers were forced to either move on to other states or take up other occupations. For a period before construction had stopped, the commissioners kept work going by issuing "IOUs" called Canal Scrip to contractors, who in turn issued the lower denominations to pay their workers. On the open market, Canal Scrip was quickly devalued to the point of being nearly worthless, but the notes were redeemable at their face value when used toward the purchase of canal lands. In this way many of the laborers settled all along the canal route. Of course there were many more who could not afford land at all, even though prices had fallen. Some settled anyway as squatters on federal sections of land. They hoped to claim property under federal pre-emption laws, but this tactic failed in the Chicago area, because most of these lands had been patented already by the U.S. Land Office and the squatters were in time ejected. One of these sites was Section Thirty (just west of present-day Ashland avenue). Another area of Bridgeport (and part of the South Branch Addition of Section Twenty-eight east of present Halsted) that had early settlement was what came to be called "Healy's Slough" and was the site of a quarry. Unlike the cessation of canal work, the quarry continued to operate, since the harbor improvements it supplied stone for were funded in part by federal grants.

Once the canal work resumed in 1845, and moreso after the canal opened in 1848, Bridgeport (going by that name by then) began to grow. Irish and German immigrants continued to come to Bridgeport -- attracted by the jobs at the canal facilities and the packing houses that located nearby. Packing houses operated during the winter (November to March) only, while the quarrying, canal work and related commerce were confined to the ice-free months of the year. Most workers, then, probably labored in more than a single occupation. Since farms were part of the Bridgeport picture back then, some probably had put in time as farm hands. Those who had a difficult time making ends meet on low wages or bouts of unemployment supplemented their incomes by raising cabbages and farm animals -- for themselves or for sale.

 

Early Bridgeport Irish

The first school in the settlement, called the Bridgeport school, was located at Archer Road and Bridge (Fuller) street. It is not clear when this was built, but likely followed the creation of the South Chicago school district in 1847. Class was most likely conducted in a home or some other makeshift structure until a building was erected. By this time the Irish community was of sufficient size to merit the establishment of a church. Early Irish Catholic parishioners had to attend services at Saint Patrick church (established 1846) on the West side. A mission to Bridgeport from St. Patrick had begun as early as 1847. Services were conducted in homes until James McKenna donated the Scanlon House inn to the congregation in 1850 -- the official founding year of Saint Bridget church; although, until 1854 when Margaret Duffy was baptized, administrative matters of the parish were handled at St. Patrick. Meanwhile collections were being taken in order to erect a new and more permanent building for the parish. Land was purchased for this purpose at the corner of Church (Arch) street and Archer Road. The new building was dedicated, free of debt, on 16 February 1862. The next year the Catholic Boys Asylum was established on church grounds and took in many young souls orphaned by the Civil War. The name of this school and orphanage changed as its mission did. For a time in the 1870s it was called the Bridgeport Institute and focused on industrial education. In 1881 it was renamed the Saint Mary Training School for Boys and moved two years later to suburban Des Plaines.

 

Early Bridgeport Germans

German immigration to Chicago increased dramatically following the failed Revolution of 1848 in the German principalities of Europe. Bridgeport was one of the earliest German settlements in northern Illinois; although little has been documented in regard to Bridgeport Germans, since the West side and especially North side German neighborhoods of Chicago were larger. Like the Irish, Germans had first come as Illinois and Michigan canal laborers. Many of the German immigrants coming after the 1848 upheaval were skilled in one trade or another. In addition to manual labor jobs, they tended to find work related to the lumber industry. Like the Irish, they began opening up their own small businesses. In the mid-1860s German proprietors were involved in craft oriented businesses such as shoe-making and harness-making as well as small shops like groceries and saloons.

While reliable population statistics for early Bridgeport have not yet been compiled, the formation of churches give some clues as to the settlement's numbers. Yet because Germans were both Catholic and Protestant, their reaching sufficient numbers to sustain a church probably lagged behind the Irish who were virtually all Catholic.    

The earliest German churches near Bridgeport were Protestant ones, generally near the river bend to the east. The Third German Evangelical Lutheran-Salem church, located at Twenty-first and Archer Road, was organized in 1857 and accessible by horse car from the mid-1860s. In 1863, the (German) First Lutheran Church of the Trinity was established at Kossuth street (Twenty-fifth place) and Hanover (Canal) street (moved to Thirty-first street and Lowe avenue in 1913, where the congregation had been operating a school). The first German Catholic church in Bridgeport began as a branch school of Saint Peter church, erected at McGregor (Twenty-fourth place) and Hanover (Canal) streets in 1868. In 1873 construction began on a large church for the new parish, called Saint Anthony of Padua by the time of its dedication in 1879. Like the Lutheran Church only a block south, Saint Anthony church was moved in 1913 when the Chicago and Western Indiana railroad right-of-way was widened. The newer church and school were built at Twenty-eighth place and Wallace street. The older school, located in today's Armour Square, became the school of the (Italian) Santa Maria Incoronata parish.

 

Settlement of Bridgeport is boosted

Both Irish and German numbers continued to grow with the coming of the railroads and with the establishment of Chicago Union Stock Yards (south of Bridgeport) and Union Rolling Mills, located on the South Fork and Archer Road. Both had opened in 1865. Additionally, hundreds of jobs were created by the work of building, and later operating, the so-called New Lumber District on the South Branch of the Chicago river. Reflecting the growth was the establishment of additional churches and social organizations.

Two more Irish  churches were founded -- both in the eastern section of Bridgeport. Nativity of Our Lord Church was dedicated in 1868, initially housed in an old livery stable (thus the name Nativity) building on Egan (Thirty-ninth street, now Pershing road) and Emerald avenues. The church was relocated to a more suitable building in 1879, at Thirty-seventh street and Dashiel (Union) avenue. Some years hence, the Daley family would become members of this parish. Another Irish church was All Saints, founded in 1875; though parishioners had been attending services in a store on Twenty-sixth street and Lowe avenue since 1871. Construction of the permanent church commenced in 1880 at Kossuth (Twenty-fifth place) and Wallace streets. By the mid-1880s, the Young Men's Lyceum and Ladies Sodality of this parish could boast of two libraries that together contained 1800 books. In addition to the Irish and German congregations, Bohemian (or Czech) Catholics in 1871 founded Saint John Nepomucene church on Twenty-fifth street in today's Armour Square. Later the church was relocated to Thirtieth street and Lowe avenue, opening in 1914.     

Most of these congregations also operated schools, but some students attended the Bridgeport public school, which was absorbed by the Chicago school system in 1863. After the Civil War, the Bridgeport school at Archer Road and Bridge (now Fuller) street was no longer of adequate size, and the Holden school was opened up in 1868. The need for the new school arose due to the opening of the livestock yards as well as the rolling mills. The jobs created attracted immigrant laborers. Charles N. Holden, the civic leader for whom the school was named, endowed the new school with a $100 per year, ten year fund that provided needy children with books and supplies.

 

New Arrivals to Bridgeport

As might have been surmised by notice of the founding of a Bohemian church, by the 1870s Bridgeport was already on its way to becoming less a Irish/German dominated place. Another ethnic group that grew quickly was a Swedish community centered in present-day Armour Square. The Salem Lutheran church was the first to be established there in 1868, followed by three more Swedish churches (all in present Armour Square) during the 1870s. Part of this Swedish community was found in the northeastern section of Bridgeport, mainly from Archer avenue to Twenty-sixth street. Swedish neighborhoods, however, did not take root. Many moved to the newer "Swede Town" near the McCormick factory on the West Fork and Robey (Damen) street and also to the Englewood area, which was a distance south of Bridgeport in the vicinity of Sixty-third and Halsted streets.

In place of the Swedish settlements came especially Italian families, starting about the early 1880s. Italians attended services first at the Santa Maria Incoronata Catholic church in present Armour Square and in time at the parishes of All Saints and Saint Anthony of Padua. By 1920 an estimated 2000 Italian families were living in an area between Twenty-second and Twenty-fifth streets, split between northeast Bridgeport and Armour Square.   Between the time of the early settled Czechs and the later arrived Italians of east Bridgeport, the largest influx of newcomers came from Poland and, secondly, from Lithuania.

Both the Poles and Lithuanians built churches in the neighborhood. The Poles organized Saint Mary of Perpetual Help in 1882 and dedicated a church at Lyman and Farrell streets in 1883. Land was then purchased on Thirty-second street between Mospratt (now Aberdeen) and Laurel (Morgan) streets. A large church, was built and dedicated on the site in 1892. Another church, Immanuel Presbyterian, was founded in 1887 at Thirty-first near Bonfield and attended by mainly Poles and some Germans. The second Polish Catholic parish of the area, Saints Peter and Paul church, was organized in 1895. SS Peter and Paul was located to the east of Ashland avenue between Thirty-sixth and -seventh streets. After the turn of the century the church was moved to Paulina street near Thirty-eighth street in McKinley Park. A third Polish Catholic parish, Saint Barbara, was organized in 1909. The church, which still stands today, was finished in 1914. Yet another small Polish church, which opened circa 1900, was the Holy Cross independent Catholic church, located first at Thirty-second and Laurel (Morgan) streets and was later found on Thirty-first and Auburn streets (Lituanica avenue).

Lithuanians had been attempting to organize a national parish of their own since the mid-1880s. They usually attended services at Polish churches. In 1892 Saint George (Lithuanian) parish was established. The congregation acquired a building, which was formerly the Immaculate Conception church, and moved it to the property purchased at Thirty-third and Auburn (Lituanica avenue) streets, opening in 1893. Work on the large church commenced in 1896 and was finished in 1902. Saint George was the first and, for a time, the largest Lithuanian church in the Midwest. In addition to the main Catholic church, three small Lithuanian churches were established -- the Lithuanian Zion Lutheran church, which opened in 1915 at Thirty-fifth street and Emerald avenue; the Lithuanian National (independent) Catholic church at Thirty-fifth and Union streets, and the Lithuanian Baptist church on Thirty-first near Halsted street.

In addition to the Poles and Lithuanians came smaller numbers of other ethnic groups. Croatian Catholics, for example, lived in the eastern section of Bridgeport and established a church, Saint Jerome, after the turn of the century in today's Armour Square.

Still in the 1880s and into the 1890s, Irish and German groups made up the largest ethnic blocks. The 1890s were the years of Finley Peter Dunne's famed fictional Irish saloon-keeper, "Mr. Dooley," of Bridgeport. Dunne, through Mr. Dooley, trumpeted a common sense neighborhood philosophy weekly in the Chicago Evening Post. One of the powerful aspects of Dunne's writings was that he borrowed real life persons and places and editorialized on contemporary issues. Furthermore, he had written regularly over a period of time -- reporting on the events of the day. He gives particularly vivid depictions of life in Bridgeport at the close of the nineteenth century. Dunne, for example, recreates popular legends from the canal days, when one wasn't simply Irish, but identified according to which county of Ireland he or she had come from. These legends weren't mere stories, but had bases in fact. It has been recorded, for instance, that a monumental riot broke out between Irish canal workers originally of County Cork versus those of County Ulster. The county sheriff and state militia had to be called in to quell the disturbance.    

In one passage, taken from Charles Fanning's study of Dunne's writings, Finley Peter Dunne describes the old northwest section of Bridgeport:

Up in Archey road the streetcar wheels squeaked along the tracks and the men coming down from the rolling-mills hit themselves on their big chests and wiped their noses on their leather gloves with a peculiar back-handed stroke at which they are most adept. The little girls coming out of the bakeshops with loaves done up in brown paper under their arms had to keep a tight clutch on their thin shawls lest those garments should be caught up by the bitter wind blowing from Brighton Park way and carried down to the gashouse....      

According to Dunne's Mr. Dooley, the fire fighter was the most revered figure in Bridgeport. Archer Road, the river and its factories were the setting for Bridgeport life; the bridge tender stood like a guard at Bridgeport's gate. Social life revolved around work; the parishes with their holy days, feasts, and festivals; and, of course, saloons like Mr. Dooley's establishment. But changes were also evident to Dunne as spoken through Mr. Dooley. Firstly, Bridgeport was becoming somehow less of ruffian town, the air of no nonsense directness or even abruptness being "replaced by the new craving for respectability," as Charles Fanning summed it.  Secondly, Irish in large numbers were moving out, though apparently retaining property and assuming the status of landlords, while eastern European immigrants were moving in. It must be kept in mind, though, that Dunne was talking of the river front/Archer avenue section of Bridgeport and not necessarily of Bridgeport as a whole.

Even when southern and eastern immigrants were flooding parts of Bridgeport, German and Irish congregations founded a few more churches in the same period. Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (B.V.M.) (German) Catholic church was founded in 1883, initially located on Bonfield street. Later the congregation moved into a large church which had been started in 1891 at the corner of Thirty-first and Mospratt (Aberdeen) streets next to the Immanuel Presbyterian church. The old wood-frame building was transferred to the Lithuanian parish of Saint George. To the west of Immaculate Conception, two German churches were located on Centre (Racine) avenue at James avenue (Thirty-first place) -- Holy Cross Lutheran and Christ's German Congregational churches. The last Irish-Catholic church to be founded in Bridgeport was Saint David in 1905. Located at Thirty-second and Emerald, a church and rectory were put up the same year. The founding of Saint David parish reflected the movement of the Irish to the southeast section of Bridgeport.

If it sounds like ethnic Bridgeport had much to do with churches, it did. There were several German churches on the account of Germans subscribing to different versions of faith, and there were so many Catholic churches on the account of the many ethnic groups. Before World War I, Bridgeport was home to more than a score of churches. While some of these were small, the Catholic and German Lutheran Churches were typically large and operated grade schools. Some of them eventually initiated high school programs as well.

Added to the usual Sunday services, baptisms, weddings, funerals, and so forth were the social functions and organizations based at the parishes. Day care facilities were established at some of them to aid working mothers. The church was indeed a focus of in the social life of Bridgeport -- even for those who were not devoutly religious. It has been said that Bridgeport (until very recently) had more churches per person than anywhere in the city. Edward Kantowicz notes that "Before the changes in devotional practice brought about by the Second Vatican Council, many Catholics observed a pious custom of visiting the Blessed Sacrament in nine different churches on Holy Thursday. The residents of Bridgeport could make this mini-pilgrimage easily on foot without leaving their own neighborhood."       And of course, this touches only upon the Catholic churches of Bridgeport.

 

Secular social life

While churches were a mainstay of ethnic Bridgeport, they were not the only focus of social life in town. Society of this working class community was in fact highly organized. In addition to the more ritual church were the public schools, locally based chapters of benevolent and fraternal societies, local union chapters, the Democratic ward organization, sports teams, settlement houses, and even street gangs. A number of less formal focal points included such places as saloons, barbers, local shops, and eateries.

In comparison with the middle years of the 1870s and much of the 1890s, the 1880s were good times. It was a banner decade in the growth of housing, which was most pronounced between 1885 and 1894. The Works Project Administration conducted a land use study in 1939 which found that a quarter of the dwellings extant in 1939 had been built before 1885, while sixty percent had been built between 1885 and 1894.  The housing boom is also reflected in the growth of local schools. The Wallace street -- later named the George B. McClellan -- school was built at Thirty-fifth and Wallace streets in 1881. The Mark Sheridan school was built the same year at Twenty-seventh and Wallace streets. In 1884 the Brenan (or Brennan) school opened on Lime (now Green) street just south of Archer Road, replacing the Bridgeport school that had been at Fuller and Archer. The Healy school was the next to be added and was built in 1885 on Wallace street near Thirty-first street. Four years later the McAllister school was finished at Thirty-sixth and Gage (Sangamon) streets. (Later this was made into a branch of Tilden high school and is presently the site of the Donovan playground.) The Philip D. Armour school, located at Thirty-third court (place) between Laurel (Morgan) and Auburn (Lituanica) was the only exception; it was not completed until about 1902.    

Two of Bridgeport's most noted settlement houses were the Fellowship House and the Benton House. The Fellowship House began in 1893 at what was then known as the Helen Heath Settlement. It was incorporated in 1905 as the Fellowship House and was located at 831 west Thirty-third place in the Lithuanian section, just west of Halsted street. Fellowship House operated a library, a kindergarten, a day nursery, a penny savings bank, as well as hosting clubs and socials for many years. Another community fixture is the Benton House.

Benton House was founded by Janett Sturges in 1907 as the Providence Day Nursery, located at 2873 Archer avenue near Elias Court. This not-for-profit nursery provided day-care support for mothers who worked in local factories. For a nominal fee the nursery provided the children three meals a day and weekly check-ups by a physician. In addition, nutrition clinics and English classes were offered in the evenings for the parents. In 1909 Benton House moved to its present location at 3052 south Gratten avenue. By 1916 it had expanded to include the House of Happiness, a recreational outlet for older children. The House of Happiness offered reading classes, shop classes, sports clubs, sewing classes, and home economics classes. Citizenship classes were also given for the increasing number of immigrants who patronized the establishment. In 1926 the day nursery closed. In 1942, the House of Happiness was renamed the Benton House in tribute to "Ma Benton" (Katherine Sturges Benton, daughter of Janett Sturges) and her family, who had established it in 1907. The Benton House is still in operation today as a recreational house for school-aged children and a meeting place for young adults. In addition to Fellowship House and Benton House, Bridgeport had a Salvation Army post and, in its early years, a chapter of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.      

Fraternal societies in the early days of Chicago were located downtown. From about the 1870s onward, local chapters became popular. After the turn of the century Bridgeport had nearly two dozen of such societies. For example, the 1911 city directory lists chapters for the following societies: Ancient Order of United Workmen, Modern Woodmen of America, Grand Army of the Republic, Free and Accepted Masons--Royal Arch, Independent Order of Foresters, United Order of Foresters, Knights of Columbus, Order of Columbian Knights, Society of St. Vincent DePaul, Luxemburger Brotherhood of America, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Ladies Auxiliary of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Knights of Pythias, Chicago Turn Bezirk, Deutscher Orden der Harugari, Plattedeutsche Gilden, Association of Lithuanian Patriots, Polish Taxpayers Protective and Improvement Association of the Fourth and Fifth Wards, Vesta Circle, Order of Mutual Protection, National Protection Legion, Knights and Ladies of Security, and the Knights and Ladies of Honor. Many organizations, though, were not listed in the directory. Another set of organizations in the community were the youth gangs.

Youth gangs seemed to function as a sort of training ground for young aspirants. Young lads banded together mainly to socialize and engaged in everything from fooling around or hanging out to criminal activity. The smarter ones, it might be said, grew up and went onto more accepted and serious pursuits, or at least abandoned a "hooligan" way of life. A few of the more lawless element ended up in the Bridewell (that is County) jail, but most seemed to avoid such a fate. The roots of the gangs go back to at least the 1860s, but they carried on as a sort of geo-cultural tradition, whether or not the ethnicity of the neighborhoods changed, and whether or not income levels rose. This is true for most of the old Chicago neighborhoods. Bridgeport is different, though, in that the primary ethnic groups remained in the community and their lots improved over time. Therefore the local gangs had a different sort of evolution than in those cases where a neighborhood completely changed ethnically or were hobbled by a continual high level of poverty. Bridgeport had begun as a very poor settlement but those living here gradually moved up the economic ladder, and the youth gangs went through a process that might be termed as maturation. Frederick Thrasher, who studied youth gangs across the city in the late 1920s, has recorded some telling descriptions of those in Bridgeport:

Fighting was common among Irish gangs of [the 1890s], who thought nothing of throwing stones and shooting. Groups like the "Bearfoots," the "Hamburgs," and the "Old Rose Athletic Club," organized by a distillery of that name, were formed in this period, and out of them have come may vigorous politicians and some world-famed athletes.

It is said that the names "Dukies" and "Shielders" are a heritage from these older gangs. The traditional hostilities between the territories have kept up, however, in spite of the radical changes that have taken place. The Irish and the Swedes in the northern section [east of Halsted] have given way before the Italians who are now the dominant nationality.       

Another old gang (1890s vintage) in the older northwest section of Bridgeport was known as the "Hickory Street" gang (Hickory is now Hillock street). Another one, which met at the basement of a saloon on Ashland avenue, was composed of Irish and German young men. Some of its members went onto become contractors and one made his way to becoming an alderman.     

South of Bridgeport the gangs tended to be a bit rougher, and their contests with the Douglas neighborhood gangs to the east are thought to have pre-heated the race riot that broke out (on the lake front) in 1919. Though the riot marked a low point in Black-White relations, it would appear that (whether formal or understood) a treaty of sorts followed in its wake. And it was not until the first Bridgeporter, Ed Kelly, became mayor in 1933 that black voters were taken seriously as a political force in Chicago. Kelly was the first to integrate Black politicians into the Democratic party.       

In any ev