WHEREAS, October 16, 2018, officially marks the 75 Anniversary of the official opening of Chicago's first passenger subway, a 4.9-mile route extending north to Armitage and Clybourn Avenues and south to 17th Street underneath State Street; and
WHEREAS, the Chicago City Council has been informed of this important anniversary by Alderman Edward M. Burke; and
WHEREAS, since 1907, when initial plans were formulated for an underground rail transit system to relieve street congestion and the overcrowding of surface line busses, until October 13, 1938 when the United States Public Works Administration in Washington D.C. granted final approval for the Chicago subway project; and
WHEREAS, United States Public Works Administration granted the City of Chicago $23 million dollars to fund construction of the subway with the city contributing $11 million dollars derived from its traction fund; and
WHEREAS, following formal ground breaking by public officials and subway engineers on December 19, 1938, the first shaft for the new subway designed to make commuting easier and quicker, was driven into the ground in a vacant lot at Chicago Avenue and State Street; and
WHEREAS, work crews ranging between 4,000 and 7,000 men excavated two million cubic yards of sand, gravel and clay placing two steel-lined, concrete reinforced tubes with a diameter of 24 feet nine inches along the route; and
WHEREAS, all of the tunneling north of the Chicago River on the State Street route and west and north of LaSalle and Lake Streets on the Dearborn Street route was done by hand-mining by workers employing power knives in compressed air; and
WHEREAS, until September 30, 1947 when the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), a publicly owned corporation under the direction of its chairman, the former commissioner of subways and traction, Philip Harrington, acquired the Chicago Surface Lines and the Chicago Rapid Transit Company, the subway system itself was owned by the City of Chicago, while private transporta...
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