American Experience

A three-part history based on historian Donald L. Miller's book "City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America." Part 1 begins with the arrival of French explorers Marquette and Joliet in 1673, and follows the digging of canals, and the arrival of railroads and industry. It ends with the Great Fire of 1871, which interrupted the city's explosive 19th-century growth only momentarily.