Lyons: Where the Portage Route Began

The Cook County suburb of Lyons sits at the western edge of greater Chicago along the Des Plaines River, and its location has mattered for centuries longer than its incorporation date of eighteen eighty-eight. Indigenous peoples and later French voyageurs used the low divide here as a portage linking the Des Plaines River to the Chicago River and ultimately to Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette passed through this corridor in sixteen seventy-three on their return from exploring the Mississippi River, and they noted how a short canal would connect the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin.

That observation eventually led to the Illinois and Michigan Canal, completed in eighteen forty-eight. Lyons grew as a river town and later an industrial suburb. Today forest preserves and trails near the old portage route connect modern visitors to the geographic logic that shaped the entire upper Midwest.