Bridgeport, Chicago

Bridgeport is one of the 77 community areas in Chicago, on the city's South Side, bounded on the north by the South Branch of the Chicago River, on the west by Ashland Avenue, on the south by Pershing Road, on the east by the Union Pacific Railroad tracks, and on the northeast by the Dan Ryan Expressway. Neighboring communities are Pilsen across the river to the north, McKinley Park to the west, Canaryville to the south, and Armour Square to the east. Bridgeport has been the home of five Chicago mayors. Once known for its racial intolerance, Bridgeport today ranks as one of the city's most diverse neighborhoods.

Bridgeport was initially called the "Portage de Checagou" (or Portage des Chenes), and Fr. Jacques Marquette and trader Louis Joliet traveled through in 1673. It technically remained under French control until 1763, then British control until 1783 or 1795 (since British traders based out of Detroit or Canada used it).

A settler named Charles Lee or Leigh came from Virginia and settled along the south fork of the Chicago River by 1804, but soon moved nearer to Lake Michigan after Fort Dearborn was completed. In April 1812, two of his tenants escaped to Fort Dearborn when visiting Winnebago proved unfriendly and massacred others at the trading post. The Leigh farm remained uninhabited as hostilities escalated into the Fort Dearborn massacre by summer's end and remained so until the U.S. Army rebuilt Fort Dearborn in 1816. Then a Detroit firm sponsored a trader, John Crafts, who rebuilt the trading post and named it "Hardscrabble". It grew to several cabins and a dormitory beside the trading post by the time of the Blackhawk War. Other residents who later became prominent included metis trader Alexander Robinson, schoolteacher Russell E. Heacock (who became the only dissenter to the plan to incorporate the Town of Chicago which was incorporated on August 12, 1833), and Jean Baptiste Beaubien (the second non-indigenous Chicago resident, an incorporation proponent and the town's first militia leader lived here 1840-1858).

Heacock became a vocal proponent of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal, which led to the area's development in the 1830s, although others since the voyageur era had previously seen the potential replacing the portage with a canal. A limestone quarry was established in 1832 or 1833, which provided stone to improve the Chicago Harbor. In 1836 the area was renamed Bridgeport, the first Chicago neighborhood. In the 1830s, large numbers of immigrants from Ireland started settling in this working-class neighborhood, which became an Irish-American enclave. Many of them had earlier helped build the Erie Canal, then arrived to work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Funding remained a problem, and the State of Illinois began issuing "Land Scrip" to the workers rather than paying them with money. A large number of those Irish-Americans who received the scrip used it to purchase canal-owned land at the northern end of the canal where it meets the south branch of the Chicago River. The original Bridgeport village, named "Hardscrabble", was centered around what is now the section of Throop Street north of 31st Street.

Bridgeport also reflects its proximity to a bridge on the Chicago River, which was too low to allow safe passage for boats, forcing cargo to be unloaded there. Finley Peter Dunne later wrote about this area in popular sketches around the turn of the 20th century. Dunne's protagonist, Mr. Dooley, lived on "Archey Road" (present day Archer Avenue). Although the Irish are Bridgeport's oldest and arguably most famous ethnic group, Bridgeport has also been home to many other groups. Bridgeport has also been home to many Italian-Americans, as has its smaller neighbor to the east, Armour Square. Many Lithuanian-Americans settled along Lituanica Avenue, which runs between 31st Street and 38th Place one block west of Halsted Street in what was once called "Lithuanian Downtown" and the center of Lithuanian settlement in Chicago. More recently, large numbers of first and second generation Mexican-Americans and Chinese-Americans arrived. Like the 19th century Irish immigrants, they found affordable housing in Bridgeport and appreciated its proximity to their work.

Bridgeport's Polish history is most visibly represented in its two churches in the Polish Cathedral style: St. Mary of Perpetual Help, and St. Barbara. The Art Institute of Chicago performed restoration work on the paintings in the Shrine Altars at St. Mary of Perpetual Help which date back to 1890, with further plans calling for restoration of the stained glass windows and to complete the painting of the interior ceilings and rotunda.

The Chinese influence in Bridgeport has also followed in other ethnic groups in establishing neighborhood places of worship; the Ling Shen Ching Tze (真佛宗美) Buddhist Temple on West 31st Street was established in 1992.

Bridgeport has been the home or birthplace of five mayors of Chicago, representing all but 10 years between 1933 and 2011, illustrating the neighborhood's influence on Chicago politics for most of the 20th century. These five men were Edward Joseph Kelly, mayor of Chicago from 1933 to 1947; Martin H. Kennelly, mayor of Chicago from 1947 to 1955; Richard J. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1955 until his death in 1976; Michael A. Bilandic, initially appointed by City Council to finish Richard J. Daley's term as mayor, the former Bridgeport alderman won the special election in 1977 and served until 1979; and Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago from 1989 until 2011.