Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West

Rich soil and increased mechanical technology brought farmers west of the Great Lakes. Diverse vegetable species like those in Europe—particularly wheat as a cash crop and corn for animal feed—could grow in large fields using draft animals. By the 1840s and ’50s, Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical reaper became popular among farmers concerned with the intense labor associated with harvesting wheat. A farmer’s success depended on a variety of human-made structures, such as a farmhouse for the family, a barn for animals, sheds for storing tools, and fences for pastures. This emphasizes the importance of relying on materials from both the forest and the prairie.

These materials, however, also established systems of land ownership. Environmental partitions identified by farming structures and fenced pastures, separating grazing and agricultural areas from the wild grasses of the prairies, established clear lines of property ownership. Government surveyors made these abstract lines into a marketable grid during the land craze of the 1830s, turning the prairie into a commodity and providing a foundation for all future land use. Farmers needed to settle in well-drained areas with easy access to wood and water supply, thus settling on the outer reaches of the prairie.

However, slow growth hardwoods for timber could not keep up with agricultural demands so farmers looked to Chicago for lumber supply.