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Chicago Was Raised 10 Feet in 1855 — And Nobody Asks Why — Transcript

by Erased Century · 2,331 words · 384 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:09[music]
0:17[music]
0:20In 1860, 600 men gathered beneath a city
0:23block in Chicago. They positioned
0:25themselves under shops, offices, print
0:27houses, and a bank. Above them sat
0:3035,000 tons of brick, stone, and iron.
0:33Four and five stories of occupied
0:34buildings stretching 320 ft along Lake
0:37Street. Inside those buildings,
0:39customers browsed merchandise. Clarks
0:42filed paperwork. Business owners counted
0:44inventory. And below their feet, those
0:46600 men began turning 6,000 jack screws
0:49in perfect synchronization. Over 5 days,
0:52the entire block rose nearly 5 ft into
0:55the air. Not a single window cracked.
0:58Not a single wall shifted. The people
1:00inside barely noticed. This happened.
1:03This is documented. This is celebrated
1:05in engineering textbooks and city
1:07histories as one of the great
1:09achievements of American ingenuity. And
1:11somehow that makes it stranger than if
1:13they had tried to hide it. I found
1:16Chicago while researching something else
1:17entirely. I was cataloging examples of
1:20buried first floors, those strange
1:22basement windows that sit at street
1:24level in old cities around the world.
1:26The ones that mud flood researchers
1:27point to as evidence of catastrophic
1:29burial events. I expected to find
1:32denials, explanations about decorative
1:34architecture, the usual dismissals.
1:37Instead, I found the opposite. I found a
1:40city that admitted in extraordinary
1:42detail to burying itself on purpose.
1:44They didn't hide what they did. They
1:46wrote it down, published it in
1:48newspapers, sold tickets to watch it
1:49happen. The question isn't whether
1:51Chicago was raised. The question is
1:53whether the official explanation
1:55actually explains anything at all. The
1:57story begins with Kolera. In 1854, an
2:00epidemic swept through Chicago and
2:02killed 6% of the population in a single
2:05summer. The city sat barely 4 feet above
2:08Lake Michigan on clay marsh that refused
2:10to drain. Streets became rivers of mud
2:12so deep they reportedly swallowed dogs
2:14and small children. Standing water
2:17collected everywhere, breeding disease.
2:19Residents joked that when you turned on
2:21your faucet, you got fish. The sewage
2:23had nowhere to go because the land was
2:25too flat. So it pulled in the streets
2:27and seeped into the drinking water and
2:29the dying continued year after year.
2:32Something had to change. In 1855, the
2:35city hired an engineer named Ellis
2:37Sylvester Chzbra. He had designed
2:39Boston's water system and came highly
2:41recommended, though nothing in his
2:43background suggested he was about to
2:44attempt the impossible. Chesbra's plan
2:47was elegant in theory and insane in
2:49practice. He proposed building the sewer
2:51system above ground first, laying the
2:53pipes on top of the existing streets and
2:56then raising the entire city to cover
2:57them. Every street would go up 4 to 14
3:00ft. Every building would have to follow.
3:03The first masonry building went up in
3:05January 1858.
3:07A four-story brick structure at the
3:09corner of Randolph and Dearbornne, 70 ft
3:11long and weighing 750 tons. Workers
3:14positioned 200 jack screws beneath it
3:17and over several days they lifted the
3:19entire building 6 feet and 2 in into the
3:21air. The newspapers reported it rose
3:24without the slightest injury to the
3:26building. This was the first of more
3:28than 50 large masonry buildings raised
3:30that same year. By autumn they were
3:32lifting rows of brick buildings over 100
3:34ft long. The following spring they
3:37doubled that length again. The
3:39contractors who made this possible
3:40became celebrities. James Brown arrived
3:43from Boston where he had moved buildings
3:45for canal construction. He partnered
3:47with Chicago engineer James
3:48Hollingsworth and together they became
3:50the busiest building razors in the city.
3:53But the name that catches my attention
3:55is George Pullman. Yes, that Pullman.
3:58The man who would later build the famous
4:00sleeping cars that revolutionized
4:01railroad travel. The man who would
4:03construct an entire company town for his
4:06workers and then refused to lower their
4:08rents during a depression, sparking one
4:10of the most violent labor conflicts in
4:12American history. The man whose body had
4:14to be encased in concrete and steel
4:16railroad ties because his workers hated
4:18him so much that his family feared they
4:20would dig him up. That George Pullman
4:23got his start lifting buildings in
4:24Chicago. Pullman arrived in 1857 and
4:28quickly proved himself. His first major
4:30contract was the Matson House, a large
4:32brick hotel that he elevated 5 ft in
4:35under a month. Then came the Briggs
4:37House, then partnership in the massive
4:39Lake Street project, then the Crown
4:41Jewel. In 1861, Pullman and his partners
4:45raised the Tremont House. This was a
4:47six-story luxury hotel covering more
4:49than an acre of ground, one of the
4:51largest buildings in Chicago, filled
4:54with wealthy guests, including several
4:56VIPs and a United States senator. 500
4:59men operated 5,000 jack screws from
5:01covered trenches beneath the structure.
5:04The hotel rose 6 feet without incident.
5:06Most of the guests had no idea it was
5:08happening. One patron later reported
5:11confusion that the front steps seemed to
5:12be getting steeper every day. When he
5:15checked out, the windows that had been
5:16at eye level were now several feet above
5:18his head. The scale of what happened
5:20next defies casual description.
5:23Buildings weren't just raised, they were
5:25moved. Entire wooden structures,
5:27sometimes whole rows of them, were
5:29placed on rollers and wheeled through
5:31the streets to make room for new masonry
5:33construction. A traveler named David
5:35McCrae wrote that never a day passed
5:37during his stay in Chicago that he
5:39didn't encounter one or more houses
5:41shifting their quarters. One day he met
5:44nine. The horse cars had to stop twice
5:46on Great Madison Street to let houses
5:48cross. This wasn't treated as
5:50extraordinary. This was traffic. I keep
5:53returning to the synchronization
5:55required. 6,000 jack screws beneath a
5:58single block, 600 men turning them in
6:00perfect coordination. If one section
6:03rose faster than another, the building
6:05would crack. If the timing failed, walls
6:07would collapse. Yet somehow, in a city
6:10that had been incorporated barely 30
6:12years earlier, that had grown from 50
6:14people to over a 100,000 in a single
6:16generation, they perfected this
6:18technology almost immediately. The
6:20technique appeared fully formed and
6:22functioned flawlessly from the start.
6:25The official history treats this as
6:26evidence of American ingenuity, of can
6:29do spirit and engineering brilliance.
6:31But it raises an uncomfortable question.
6:34Where did this knowledge come from?
6:35George Pullman learned his trade from
6:37his father who had moved buildings along
6:39the Eerie Canal using jack screws and a
6:42patented device of his own design. So
6:44the technology existed before Chicago.
6:47But the scale in Chicago was
6:49unprecedented. Nothing in the historical
6:51record explains how they jumped from
6:53moving canal warehouses to lifting
6:55occupied city blocks without apparent
6:57trial and error, without documented
6:59failures, without a learning curve of
7:01any kind. The skill simply appeared when
7:04it was needed, and then it all burned.
7:07October 8, 1871.
7:10The Great Chicago Fire begins around
7:129:00 in the evening in a barn on Dovven
7:14Street. Over the next 2 days, it
7:16destroys 17,450
7:18buildings across 3 and a2 square miles.
7:21300 people perish. 100,000 are left
7:24homeless. The business district that had
7:26just been raised at enormous expense is
7:28completely obliterated. And here is
7:31where the story takes a turn I wasn't
7:33expecting. The same night, the same
7:35hour, 200 m north in Peshigo, Wisconsin,
7:38another fire ignites. This one burns 1.2
7:412 million acres and takes between 1,200
7:45lives, making it the deadliest fire in
7:47American history. The exact death toll
7:49is unknown because all the local records
7:51were destroyed. The same night, Port
7:53Huron, Michigan burns. Holland, Michigan
7:56burns. Manaste, Michigan burns. Five
7:59major fires across three states, all
8:01beginning on the same evening. The
8:03official explanation is weather. A long
8:05drought had left the region dangerously
8:07dry. Strong southwest winds fanned the
8:10flames. The fires were tragic
8:12coincidences of climate and combustible
8:14wooden construction. But speculation
8:16about the simultaneous outbreaks began
8:18almost immediately and has never fully
8:20stopped. As early as 1883, researchers
8:23proposed that fragments from BA's comet
8:25might have caused the fires. Witnesses
8:28reported blue flames and fire falling
8:30from the sky. The behavior of the blazes
8:32was described as tornado and hurricane.
8:35In 2004, the American Institute of
8:38Aeronautics and Astronautics published a
8:40paper revisiting the comet theory. The
8:43official position remains coincidence.
8:45The pattern remains unexplained. What we
8:47know for certain is what was lost.
8:49Chicago's pre-fire records burned, the
8:52buildings that had been raised at such
8:53expense burned. The documentation of who
8:56had lived in those buildings, and what
8:58had been beneath them burned. The city
9:00rebuilt quickly, this time with strict
9:02fire codes requiring masonry
9:04construction. The old Chicago, the one
9:06that had been lifted into the air, was
9:08replaced entirely. Within 20 years, the
9:10population had grown from 300,000 to
9:13over a million. The raised city became a
9:16footnote, an engineering curiosity, a
9:18fun fact for tourists. But Chicago
9:21wasn't the only city that chose this
9:23solution. 18 years later on June 6,
9:261889, the Great Seattle Fire destroyed
9:2925 blocks of the city's downtown. Within
9:31days, city leaders decided to raise the
9:34streets 12 to 30 ft. The method was
9:36similar to Chicago's, though even more
9:38dramatic. They built retaining walls
9:40along the streets, then slleed down
9:42nearby hills to fill the space between.
9:45Buildings that survived the fire found
9:47their first floors suddenly underground.
9:49Merchants continued operating at the old
9:51street level while construction
9:53proceeded above them. Customers climbed
9:55down ladders to reach the subterranean
9:57storefronts. Glass vault lights were
9:59installed in the new sidewalks to let
10:01daylight through. Eventually, the
10:03underground levels were abandoned. The
10:05city built new sidewalks that sealed
10:07them off entirely. In 1907, the
10:10underground was condemned over fears of
10:11bubonic plague. The buried streets
10:14became opium dens and speak easys and
10:16homeless shelters, then faded from
10:18memory altogether. Today, you can take a
10:20tour and walk through the remains. You
10:23can see the old storefront windows
10:25staring out at retaining walls. You can
10:27stand in what was once street level and
10:29look up at the glass lights in the
10:31ceiling that used to be the sidewalk.
10:33Seattle and Chicago.
10:35[snorts] Two cities, two fires, the same
10:37solution. Both raised their streets.
10:40Both buried their original ground
10:42floors. Both lost their pre-fire
10:44records. Both treat the raising as a
10:46triumph of engineering over adversity.
10:48The pattern repeats with unsettling
10:50precision. And then there is the matter
10:53of the 1890 census. This census was
10:56special. It was the first to use
10:58electrical tabulation, the first to
11:00document families on individual
11:01schedules, the most comprehensive record
11:04of American population in the post civil
11:06war era. It captured the nation at the
11:08exact moment when these raised cities
11:10were being completed. When the
11:12generation that remembered the before
11:14was still alive to answer questions. On
11:16January 10th, 1921, a fire broke out in
11:20the basement of the Commerce Building in
11:21Washington DC.
11:23The 1890 census records were stacked
11:26outside the fireproof vault. The census
11:28records from other decades, the 1830s,
11:311840s, 1880s, 1900s, and 1910, were
11:35stored safely inside the vault. 25% of
11:38the 1890 records were destroyed
11:40immediately. Another 50% sustained
11:43serious water and smoke damage. The
11:45investigation never determined a cause.
11:47The damaged records sat in a warehouse
11:49for 12 years. Historians and
11:51genealogologists protested plans to
11:53destroy what remained. The government
11:56denied any such plans. Then quietly in
11:59February 1933, Congress authorized the
12:02destruction anyway. One day earlier,
12:04President Herbert Hoover had laid the
12:06cornerstone for the new National
12:08Archives building. The records that
12:10would have documented America during the
12:12era of the raised cities, the buried
12:14first floors, the simultaneous fires
12:16were gone before the archives opened. I
12:19want to be careful here. I am not
12:21claiming definitive proof of conspiracy.
12:23I'm pointing out a pattern that the
12:25official narrative does not adequately
12:27address. Chicago raised its buildings
12:29using technology that appeared fully
12:31formed. Multiple cities burned on the
12:33same night. The census that documented
12:36that era was destroyed under suspicious
12:38circumstances. Every question leads to
12:40another question and the answers always
12:42seem to circle back to coincidence,
12:44tragedy, lost records. Move along. But
12:47consider what we're being asked to
12:48believe. that a city barely 30 years old
12:50developed the expertise to lift occupied
12:53buildings weighing tens of thousands of
12:54tons without significant trial and
12:56error. That five major fires ignited
12:59independently across three states on the
13:01same evening by chance. That the one
13:04census recording the population during
13:06this transformation was stored outside
13:08the fireproof vault by accident and then
13:10destroyed despite protests. that cities
13:13worldwide ended up with buried first
13:15floors and basement windows at street
13:17level through unrelated processes that
13:19all happened to occur in the same
13:21historical period. Once you see it, you
13:24can't unsee it. What was beneath Chicago
13:27before they raised it? What did George
13:29Pullman's workers find in those covered
13:31trenches below the Tremon house? What
13:34stood at the original street level in
13:35Seattle before they slleed the hills
13:37down to bury it? We cannot know because
13:39the physical evidence was sealed beneath
13:41new construction and the documentary
13:43evidence was consumed by flames that
13:45struck with impossible coordination. The
13:48buildings were raised, the fires burned,
13:50the records disappeared, and we are told
13:52this is all coincidence, all tragedy,
13:55all brilliant engineering solving
13:56practical problems that arose naturally
13:58from swamps and disease. But I keep
14:01returning to those 600 men beneath that
14:03city block, turning their jack screws in
14:05perfect unison, while shoppers browsed
14:08above them unaware. I keep thinking
14:10about George Pullman and where he went
14:12next, building luxury railroad cars and
14:14company towns, accumulating power and
14:17wealth and secrets. I keep seeing those
14:20basement windows at street level in
14:21cities across the world. The ones that
14:23don't make sense until you imagine what
14:25might be below them. Chicago wasn't just
14:27lifted into the air. Something was
14:29buried beneath. And whatever it was,
14:31they made sure we would never find out
14:33what used to be there. What else
14:35vanished when the ground level changed?

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