New photo book documents reversing flow of Chicago River
January 4, 2012 9:02PM
The excursion boat Theodore Roosevelt heads east under the State Street bridge in 1910. From the book "The Lost Panoramas When Chicago Changed Its River And The Land Beyond" by Richard Cahan & Michael Williams.
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Updated: February 23, 2012 8:01AM
It was, and remains, an astonishing feat of engineering — reversing the flow of the Chicago River.
Beginning in 1894, photographers set out to document the mammoth project. Some of those 22,000 images are now featured in the recently released book by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, “The Lost Panoramas; When Chicago Changed its River and the Land Beyond.” Few of the images have ever been seen before, the authors say. The negatives were recently discovered by accident in a basement of the James C. Kirie Water Reclamation Plant in Des Plaines.
“Nearly every photo is panoramic in nature — wide-angle, unobstructed views of a world that no longer exists,” the authors write.
The book, published by CityFiles Press, retails for $45. Cahan is a former Chicago Sun-Times picture editor.
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