Jun 28, 2026 · 1 hr 1 min · 16 segments
We try to tell the story of life in America through portraits of life on four different corners, in four different states across the nation. Visit…
Sarah VowellGuest
Mike PaternitiGuest
Achy ObejasGuest
Ira GlassHost
Scott RichardGuestJulie RiggsGuestAlGuestJulieGuestMeaganGuest
Pablo TorreGuest
A couple of French explorers, a plaque on the bridge said, "Passed by in 1673," an Indian massacre in 1812 right there in front of the Burger King, vague notions of Abe Lincoln's debt to the Chicago Tribune, whose quaint Gothic tower looms over the bridge's north side.
I thought, "That's enough American history, and I just make up the rest." [upbeat music] Turns out my theory was only too right.
The intersection of Michigan and Wacker, I found out, isn't just a corner, it's a vortex.
The deeper I dug into the history of Chicago and its relationship to the history of the country, the more crowded the ghost traffic jam clogging up the Michigan Avenue Bridge got.
[traffic rumbling] Hey, I'm standing here right now on the Michigan Avenue Bridge, and the Chicago River is right underneath me.
There are some ducks floating under there, and a boat just went by, and here's another one coming.
Out there is where the river meets Lake Michigan to the east, and looking south, the place where the bridge hits land is the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, where you can get your vision checked or buy a nice fur coat should you desire.
I'm swiveling around, and the view from the bridge is just picture postcard pretty, especially at night when the Wrigley Building is just lit up so soft it glows.
Supposedly, the building so delighted Joseph Stalin that he had the University of Moscow designed in its image, and who can blame him? The American national mythology revolves around the idea that the promise of America is best seen in the West, home, home on the range, et cetera.
Existentially, that might be true, but economically, the real place to witness the promise of America is the Midwest, where, for most of this country's history, the products of the range were manipulated for fun and profit.
When the cowboys sang, "Get along little dogie," they left out the part where the little dogie is railroaded to Chicago to be slaughtered by some underpaid, overworked immigrant en route to its manifest destiny as a New Yorker supper.
The first person to grasp the significance of this place where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan was Louis Jolliet, or as he's known around here, Joliet.
Back when his name was still said with a French accent, Joliet was a 27-year-old fur trader who accompanied a Jesuit missionary named Jacques Marquette on a canoe expedition from Quebec in 1673.
They were to map the Mississippi in the name of France, unaware that Spain had already claimed the river some 130 years before.
On the return trip, at the suggestion of their Indian guide, they traveled from the Mississippi into the Illinois River and then the Des Plaines.
They got out and carried their canoes a few dozen miles to the Chicago River, where they got back in their canoes and paddled to this very spot, right where the river meets the Great Lakes, just below the corner at Michigan and Wacker.
His map of North America, an oddly pretty, delicate ink drawing he made in 1674, is concerned with one thing and one thing only: water.
There's Lake Michigan and at only one spot, the future site of Chicago, does it connect to a river that connects to a couple of other rivers that could connect it to the Mississippi.
This is what Joliet saw, that this place is a continental hub, the missing link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and thus the Atlantic and the Gulf.
All that was needed was a short canal spanning the miles of prairie between rivers.
He wrote, "We could go with facility to Florida in a bark, and by very easy navigation." Thus, Joliet's map isn't so much a map as a prophecy.
A couple of French explorers, a plaque on the bridge said, "Passed by in 1673," an Indian massacre in 1812 right there in front of the Burger King, vague notions of Abe Lincoln's debt to the Chicago Tribune, whose quaint Gothic tower looms over the bridge's north side.
I thought, "That's enough American history, and I just make up the rest." [upbeat music] Turns out my theory was only too right.
The intersection of Michigan and Wacker, I found out, isn't just a corner, it's a vortex.
The deeper I dug into the history of Chicago and its relationship to the history of the country, the more crowded the ghost traffic jam clogging up the Michigan Avenue Bridge got.
[traffic rumbling] Hey, I'm standing here right now on the Michigan Avenue Bridge, and the Chicago River is right underneath me.
There are some ducks floating under there, and a boat just went by, and here's another one coming.
Out there is where the river meets Lake Michigan to the east, and looking south, the place where the bridge hits land is the corner of Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive, where you can get your vision checked or buy a nice fur coat should you desire.
I'm swiveling around, and the view from the bridge is just picture postcard pretty, especially at night when the Wrigley Building is just lit up so soft it glows.
Supposedly, the building so delighted Joseph Stalin that he had the University of Moscow designed in its image, and who can blame him? The American national mythology revolves around the idea that the promise of America is best seen in the West, home, home on the range, et cetera.
Existentially, that might be true, but economically, the real place to witness the promise of America is the Midwest, where, for most of this country's history, the products of the range were manipulated for fun and profit.
When the cowboys sang, "Get along little dogie," they left out the part where the little dogie is railroaded to Chicago to be slaughtered by some underpaid, overworked immigrant en route to its manifest destiny as a New Yorker supper.
The first person to grasp the significance of this place where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan was Louis Jolliet, or as he's known around here, Joliet.
Back when his name was still said with a French accent, Joliet was a 27-year-old fur trader who accompanied a Jesuit missionary named Jacques Marquette on a canoe expedition from Quebec in 1673.
They were to map the Mississippi in the name of France, unaware that Spain had already claimed the river some 130 years before.
On the return trip, at the suggestion of their Indian guide, they traveled from the Mississippi into the Illinois River and then the Des Plaines.
They got out and carried their canoes a few dozen miles to the Chicago River, where they got back in their canoes and paddled to this very spot, right where the river meets the Great Lakes, just below the corner at Michigan and Wacker.
His map of North America, an oddly pretty, delicate ink drawing he made in 1674, is concerned with one thing and one thing only: water.
There's Lake Michigan and at only one spot, the future site of Chicago, does it connect to a river that connects to a couple of other rivers that could connect it to the Mississippi.
This is what Joliet saw, that this place is a continental hub, the missing link between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and thus the Atlantic and the Gulf.
All that was needed was a short canal spanning the miles of prairie between rivers.
He wrote, "We could go with facility to Florida in a bark, and by very easy navigation." Thus, Joliet's map isn't so much a map as a prophecy.
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