Healy Slough

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Healy Slough, Scanlon Slough, Ogden Slip
Life Span: 1850-1915
Location: Archer Avenue and Halsted Steet
Architect: NA

D. B. Cooke & Co.’s City Directory for the Year 1859-60

Healy Patrick C.

Halpin & Bailey’s City Directory for the Year 1863-64
Healy Patrick, carpenter, r. ns. 26th nr. Butler

Chicago Tribune, December 15, 1885

There will come up for argument in the United States Supreme Court sometime this week a venerable Chicago case which has been handed back and forth in the City Council and in the courts for the last nineteen years. It is that of Healy Slough. The Healy Slough is, or was, a muddy and uncertain stream which started near Thirty-first and Lyman streets and meandered in a northeasterly direction across Deering and Main streets and Archer avenue, entering the South Branch between Quarry and Salt streets. It never was much of a stream apparently at any time, and of late years has amounted to nothing since the Chicago & Alton Railroad put a permant bridge where it crosses it, Along back about 1866 an effort was made in the Council first by the heirs of the late Mr. Healy to have a swing bridge put in by the Alton and the slough dredged out so that it might be made what they claimed the Lord made it in the first place—a navigable stream. They owned considerable property down there, and if the stream could have been made navigable its value would have been materially increased. The Council passed resolutions of orders at one time and another declaring the Alton bridge a nuisance. Some of these were vetoed by the Mayor. Finally, seeing that the Council could do nothing the heirs took the matter into court and filed a bill in the Circuit Court against the Alton to force it to put in a swing-bridge. The case was decided against them in the lower court along about 1877, but the Appellate Court reversed it in 1878, and directed the Superior Court to comply with the request of the petitioners. The railroad, however, carried the case up to the Appellate ook the matter into court and filed a bill in the Circuit Court against the Alton to force it to put in a swing-bridge. The case was decided against them in the lower court along about 1877, but the Appellate Court was in turn reversed.

Justice Scott, in the course of his opinion, said that the courts did not think that the body of water spanned by the railroad bridge was navigable, in the legal sense of the word. One allegation in the bill upon which right to relief was based that the “Healy Slough” was a natural stream forming the western boundary of the premises, emptying into the South Branch, and thereby as an arm and affluent connecting it with the canal and Lake Michigan. The “Healy Slough,” the Justice held, was not a stream, it had no current, but was simply a depression filled in by the waters of the South Branch. Since 1836, when the Archer road was laid out, it was not claimed that vessels of any kind had passed the bridge. The bridge built over the slough in 1848 was removed in about a year, but not because it obstructed a navigable stream. The slip was clearly private property, and had so been treated by the State officers and original riparian owners. There was no navigable channel and a swing-bridge could serve no useful purpose, therefore the opinion of the Appellate Court would be reversed.

Fro the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois the case was taken up by the Healys to the Supreme Court of he United States, on the ground that it related to navigable water-courses, and that, therefore, the Federal Court had jurisdiction. What the result of the appeal to this court of last resort will be will probably be known within a few weeks. If it is decided to be a navigable stream it will put the railroad to considerable expense, but will and materially to the amount of dock property in that part of the city.

Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1896

The United States Supreme Court has decided the Healy slough case against the Healy heirs and in favor of the Alton Railroad Company, which will continue to maintain a permanent bridge across that stream on Archer avenue.

Chicago Post, January 31, 1866

The Scanlon Slough.
After passing a number of ordinances regarding the repaving of streets, the Scanlon slough question came up for consideration. An ordinance on the subject, which had been under consideration at the last meeting, was, after some discussion, passed. It provides that the slough shall be excavated, and the nuisance thus removed. The estimated cost of the work is $20,450, which shall be borne by the property-holders interested, and the work will not be commenced until the assessments are all paid in.

Chicago Tribune, January 31, 1866

The Haley or Scanlon Slough.
Ald. Russell mored to refer the whole matter back to the board of Public Works, for them to report a suitable ordinance.

As two sections of the ordinance had already beca passed at a previous meeting, the Chair ruled the motion out of order.

Ald. Carter had prepared an estimate on the subject, which, in comparison with the estimate of the Board ot Public Works, stood as follow:

The estimate of Ald. Carter based on the plan was as follows:

Upon the reading of the section of the ordinance authorizing an assessment of $29,450 upon the real estate interested in the work in question, the section passed, Ayes, 16; noes, 10.

An additional section, providing that before the work la commenced, the property holders in question shall pay into the city treasury the amount to be assessed, or guarantee the same, was drawn up by the Corporation Counsel and passed.

Ald. Russell moved to refer the whole matter back to the Board of Public Works with instructions to prepare an ordinance to fill up the slough. Lald on the table.

The ordinance was then voted upon as a whole. The ordinance provided that the slough be dredged out to a depth of twelve feet, fifty-five in width and seventy-five feet at the water line.

The vote on the passage stood ayes, 15, noes, 11, and the chair declared the ordinance passed.

Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1872

The Healy Slough.
The annual pestilence of the Healy Slough is upon the city. Every train of cars entering the city or leaving it by the southwest has to pass through a current of fetid air that is horrible to endure, and fatal to health. The people of the Sixth and Seventh Wards, and of all that part of the city lying to the east and northeast of this abominable nuisance, are subjected, by day and by night, to an air-bath of this terrible stench and of this polluted wind, which leaves a greasy, sickening deposit upon all things over which it passes. The Healy Slough, and the no less offensive nuisances by which it is supplemented, are not new inventions.

They are of age. Their precise locality is as well known to the Board of Health as that of the Court House. Nevertheless, sereral successive administrations havo failed to mitigate the abomination. The great argument, some years ago, in favor of establishing a Health Department was, that, if it did no other good, it would abate the Healy Slough. Scientific attainments, aided hy investigations in foreign lands, have failed to meet the difficulty of the Healy Slough. Chicago has overcome great natural difficulties, and now draws from the bottom of Lake Michigan, far from shore, her supply of water; but Chicago can neither drain nor fill up the Healy Slough. Chicago has reversed the great law of Nature which leads water to run down hill, and now pours her stream into the Illinois River, sending it to the Gulf of Mexico; but the science that could accomplish all this stands baffled at the precincts of the Healy Slough. We can disinfect and deodorize the accumulated filth of ages, outside of the Healy Slough. We can overcome all geographical, geological, and topographical dificulties, except the Healy Slough. We can drain the whole North-west; we can call, as if by magic, living streams of pure water from the remote bowels of the earth; but we can do nothing with the Healy Slough. We have lifted Chicago from a marsh; we have made great highways upon ground once covered by water; we have filled up holes and ravines, and made all things smooth, firm, and dry; but we have not yet been able to drain, fill up, disinfect, deodorize, or molest the Healy Slough. We have, from the ruins of our burned city, extended its eastern boundary out into the lake, the filling being hard, firm, and enduring; but we have not yet had the courage or the intelligence to “tackle” the Healy Slough.

If the Board of Health have the courage appertaining to men holding such a place, let them rescue the city from the further disgrace of this mammoth nuisance. Let them take the legal steps at once to have that slough condemned as a pestilential hole, and have it filled with broken bricks, chloride of lime, ashes, copperas, and other materials from its source to its month. The objection that there are private rights opposed to any meddling with the Healy Slough, has no strength. No man has a right to maintain a public stench. No man has any right which militates against the public health and comfort. Let the city at once proceed to close that slough permanently. Let it be filled up with solid material and disinfectants, and, if there be any person who is injured by such a proceeding, let him be compensated. The public will cheerfully pay the bill. But the nuisance must be abated.

Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1873

Filthy, odorous, and pest-breeding streets are largely responsible for the greater portion of the 10,156 deaths reported for the year 1872. That must have been the general verdict of those who have read the description of some of the streets of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Wards published in yesterday’s Tribune. But, bad as that district is, there are still others that are accessories, if not equally responsible, for this wholesale slaughter. The districts described yesterday were given the preference, because they are situated in the very heart of the city, and are the most densely populated. That those streets have no sewers is unpardonable, if not criminal. There are still other districts, the death-rate of which is equally large, if not larger, than that of the districts described yesterday; but they are farther out of the way, and not as densely populated as those mentioned. It will be observed by looking at the sewerage map published with our first article (below), that all the wards throwing a large death-rate lie within that part of the city which, on the map, is shaded as low and marshy ground. One of the lowest, as well as unhealthiest, wards is the Sixth, which includes all the territory west of Clark and south of Twenty-second street. It is the southwest corner of the city, and embraces within its limits the well-known, much-abused Bridgeport.

By taking a walk through the ward, after entering it at the corner of Clark street and Archer avenue, the first street reached deserving special mention is Elgin, which has lately been sewered, but, as the houses are unconnected with the drain, the street, or alley, for it is only 44 feet wide, is in a horrible condition, and all the yards and lots are very filthy. Heaps of garbage are lying in the middle of the feet, breeding disease in the hot sun, while contains of manure decorate the yards. The odors arising from this conglomeration of filth, mix with the fumes and gases escaping from the chemical works of Mahler & Chappel, on Stewart avenue, between Elgin and Twentieth streets, which combination of smells creates a stench in which that of sulphur greatly predominates, impressing one with the idea that here is the shaft leading down to the regions of His Satanic Majesty, and this impression is farther strengthened by the sight of heaps of sulphur facing the street. How unhealthy these fumes are may be imagined from the fact that all the large trees within a radius of 100 yards of these works have been killed, the black trunks of which are still standing, like ghastly spectres, looking upon Elgin street as it to warn the inhabitants to shun and leave this place of pestilence and death, where trees cannot exist, much less human beings.

Grove is another street that is lifting up daily its odorous voice in supplication to be cleaned, but without avail, probably because the Alton & St. Louis Railroad runs through it, and is expected to carry all the sweet aromas arising therefrom to our neighbor on the Mississippi. Calkins & Fisher’s lumber-steaming establishment, on this street, is surrounded by dark, brown pools of stagnant water, which escapes from their boilers, and has no other outlet except to run under the neighboring houses, where it becomes stagnant, and filthy, forcing sickness and death into the homes of those that are compelled to live there.

While the reporter and the sanitary policeman that was accompanying him were measuring the depth of the water which had collected under one of these houses, an old woman, haggard and worn, came out of her door and asked “Are ye the men to see that there is something done for us?” On being answered in the affirmative, the poor woman, with tears in her eyes, exclaimed: “God bless ye and yer families for this. Two children I have already lost, and the rest of us will soon follow them if nothing is done for us.” The reporter and the party accompanying him assured the poor woman that something should be done for her.

A few yards south of this place is a large vacant lot, which is filled to overflowing with stagnant water. This is caused by a leak in the waterpipe beneath the railroad track, and as the railroad company objects to having its track torn up, which has to be done to repair the leak, the water is allowed to over-flow and inundate the surrounding property, though much damage is done thereby.

Under the sidewalk on the northeast corner of Archer avenue and Grove streets there can be observed such a sink of iniquity the like of which human eye hag never seen nor pose turned up at, since the creation of the world. To stand ten minutes before this pool makes one’s nostrils curl with a suspicion of his own decay. It needs only to be mentioned that this pesthole is occasioned by the overflowing of numberless water-closets that abound under the sidewalk, and no one will ever hereafter pass that spot without holding his or her nose.

Overpowered and sickened by the poison, one leaves this nauseating spot to inhale, a few whiffs of fresh air on the bridge. But what is this? Instead of fresh air an aroma of death is inhaled. Wondering what this can be, one looks around, but nothing unusual meets our eye, until at last it droops down and looks upon the dark chast far below. An inky, boiling, bubbling river meets the gaze, from which poisonous gases continually escape, polluting the atmosphere for miles around.There is no necessity for any lengthy description of this place. It is as familiar to every Chicagoan as hash is to a Wabash avenue boarder. Every one must have read of the bridge, and the inky waters below. It has been sung by all the poets of high and low degree Chicago has ever brought forth. This bridge is the gate to the Cologne of America—Bridgeport—and the sty beneath is Ogden’s Slip, the receptacle of the abominations of slaughter and rendering houses, and beyond, as far as the eye can reach, the beautiful Bridgeport is situated,

Clouds of smoke envelop everything, and the all-pervading smell is an odor of dead. Deadly gases that arise from numberless escape-pipes are carried by the winds into the homes of the rich as well as of the poor, whore they are continually inhaled and ultimate disease and death will be the result. No such places as are found in this district should be tolerated.

The streets of Bridgeport are not in such a horrible condition as some of the streets heretofore described. This is in a great measure due to the honesty and integrity of Mr. Bieson, Street Commissioner for this district. Mr. Bieson is a simple-minded German, who feels a great pride in his position, and looks after his men, and as a consequence the work under his charge is well done—the streets are plowed and nicely rounded, and the ditches properly dug out. But just here it would be of little importance whether the streets are neglected or not; the odors and gases hovering around everywhere could not be more intense than they already are. They come from the numberless slips, sloughs, slaughter, and rendering houses, candle and soap, blood and gut factories, that everywhere abound. The largest and best known of these estallishments is Reid, Sherwin & Co.’s slaugher and packing-house, which is situated at the head of Ogden’s Slip, into which drains all the liquid refuse from their immense institution. Here are slaughtered from 1,000 to 1,500 cattle weekly, the offal of which is dumped into pens below. Most of these pens are continually filled to the brink, and through the floors there oozes a dark putrid fluid, which runs into Ogden Slip. All around this rottenness millions of flies are feasting, while heaps of hides, entrails, and dead calves meet the eye everywhere. That part of the offal that is too thick to run into Ogden Slip is collected and manufactured into fertilizers, heaps of which are lying around, and add not a particle to the agreeableness of the smell pervading the place. But the worst and unhealthiness smell arises from the rendering tanks, where the fat is melted into an tallow. From these tanks there is continually escaping a blue vapor, which, it carbonized, will burn like gas.

At Derby & Pond’s gut factory, opposite Reid, Sherwin & Co.’s glue establishment, they are cleaning guts and packing pigs’ feet and tripe, the scrapings of which usually cover the floor to the depth of an inch. All the soluble part of this stuff runs into a sewer on McGregor street, and, if the sewer does not run into Ogden Slip, no one knows where it does lead to.

Next to this place is Turner Bros.’s gut-string manufactory. This place is in a very dilapidated and filthy condition, the floors being in a fine state of rottenness, superinduced by the offal and and gut-scrapings strewn around and allowed to decompose. In the yard this establishment which is an abomination which should be immediately corrected. All that part of the offal too thick to run into the sewer is dumped into a deep, square hole in the centre of the lot, which is partially covered up with boards, over which is spread a thin layer of earth. From this hole a stench arises stronger and far more deadly than any of those heretofore described. Webster’s Dictionary does not contain an expression adequate to convey the idea of the odor arising from this chasm of decomposed guts, and the sooner the authorities have this nuisance abated and the hole filled up with earth, the better it will be for the health of the entire city.

Next comes Schneider & Co.’s tallow factory, which also largely contributes to the conglomeration of filth in Ogden Slip. The establishment is kept tolerably clean, but yet the odors arising therefrom are very noxious indeed. All these places, and many others of smaller degree, add to the filthy condition of Ogden Slip.

Leaving Ogden Slip, and crossing Archer avenue, J. C. Mitchell’s slaughter-house comes in view. Mostly hogs are killed here. It is the dirtiest and filthiest of all the slaughter-houses at Bridgeport. The hog-pens, which front on Archer avenue, and are concealed from view. by a high board fence, are about the nastiest pens in which hogs were ever quartered. There are at least two feet of filth and manure on the floors, and how it smells can be imagined from the fact that from 500 to 1,000 hogs take daily ablutions in this morass. In the yard stands a large tank full of clotted blood, livers, and entrails, all of which are in the highest state of decomposition. This tank, by actual measurement, is ten feet deep.

Not far from this place is D. Kreigh’s beet and pork packing house. Although this place is in a tolerable good condition as far as cleanliness is concerned, yet its existence is made known by the all-pervading odor.

Now comes a place still worse than Ogden Slip. Worse than that? the reader will ask. Yes! tenfold worse! It is the justly-celebrated Healey Slough, whose, geographical position is hardly unknown to the public, and which should have been filled up long ago. It originates with the Chicago River, and runs south about one mile, and in no place is the water over two feet deep, but the soft mud under the water undoubtedly reaches down to China, as no human being ever yet found bottom. Whatever abominations find their way into this receptacle of filth remains to fester there forever. The inky, bubbling water bas no current whatever, and no wavelet ever ripples its surface. Schueneman’s slaughter-house is one of the institutions that add immensely to the celebrity of Healey Slough as a health-destroyer. It will be remembered that there was a boiler explosion at this establishment not long ago, at which accident three or four persons were killed. In consequence of that calamity there is not much doing at present, workmen being busily engaged in restoring the place to its former grandeur.

The cattle-yards fronting on Healey Slough are full of dirt and filth, all of which runs into the ditch. The proprietors say their place connects with the river, but their enemies insist that it connects with the Slough. The next benefactor of the Slough is the albumen or blood-factory of Stern, Hirsch & Co. This is undoubtedly one of the unhealthiest places in the City of Chicago, if not in the United States. The reporter of The Tribune, knowing “no danger where duty calls,” entered. Through rivers of clotted blood he was led up a pair of rickety stairs to the rooms where albumen is being dried on tin plates. The heat in those rooms was above 100 degrees, and the smell the most intense that can possibly be imagined. The reporter hastened from this horrid place, almost suffocated.

Strange to say, the keeper of a saloon wedged in between S. H. & Co.’s blood-factory and Turner’s slaughter-house is the very picture of health. He swears that these smells are very conducive to health, and he could testify to it by the fact that when he moved there he only weighed 125 pounds, while he now is turning the scales at 300 pounds, avoirdupois. But it must be remembered that the man is rapidly growing rich from the patronage he receives from those places.

Going farther south on Healey Slough, J. Turner’s slaughter-house is reached. This is a model establishment, and is supplied with all modern appliances calculated to prevent offense, yet it contributes largely to the sweltering rottenness of Healey Slough. Mr. Turner says the Slough is not quite as pad as it used to be, and that fish are now living in it. Although the reporter begged Mr. Turner very urgently to catch one of these fish, that it might be sent to Prof. Agaseiz, and its species determined, yet Mr. T. refused to gratify him.

Mr. Turner has a patent arrangoment by which he collects all the fumes and odors escaping from the rendering-tanks, and leads them through gas-pipes into, a carbonater, from whence they are conducted back into the furnace, and burned as fuel, thereby saving a considerable amount of money. He also lights part of his establishment with this gas, which burns nearly as well as that manufactured from coal.

There are many other establishments of the same character as those described at Bridgeport, but it is hardly necessary to describe them, as they all tell the same story of filth and stench, which cannot be abated unless the authorities will see to it that these places are no longer tolerated in our midst to scatter disease and pestilence into every household.

Chicago Tribune, June 20, 1873

Healy Slough—A $30,000 Suit.
Another Healy Slough suit was yesterday commenced in the Circuit Court. Benjamin and Samuel Schoenernann the owners of Lot 1 in Bamard & Evans’ Subdivision of Block 2, of south fractional part of Section 29, T. 39, N. R. 14 E. of 3 P. M., file their bill against the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company, and allege the facts, already generally known, with regard to the Healy slough; the original contract of the Joliet & Chicago Railroad Company to bridge it with movable bridges, the absorption of that railroad by the present defendant; the building of the fixed bridge, and the subsequent uselessness of the Slough as a dock. The complainants claim that they are damaged to the extent of $30,000, their bill winding up with the usual demand that the defendant may be ordered to specifically perform the contract entered into with Messrs. Barnard & Erand, the original owner of complainants’ property.

Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1889

NO CABLE FOR ARCHER AVENUE YET.
Superintendent Holmes Says the Improvement Must Await New Viaducts.
One of the advantages which was to follow the granting of an ordinance to the Illinois Central’s Madison & Northern Line was that Archer avenue would immediately have a cable road. This was to be brought about in consequence of the closing of Healy’s slip by the building of the railroad, this slip being the obstacle wich had blocked the South Side company in its intention to make the improvement.

Superintendent C. B. Holmes was asked yesterday if the company would put in a cable on Archer avenue it ibe Council allows the Madison & Northern to come in and the Healy slip in consequence is closed. Mr. Holmes said:

We haven’t even considered the matter. The Healy slip has been only one of the obstacles. We shall be glad to have the slip closed. It should have been closed long ago out of consideration for the public health. But Archer avenue can never be cabled until there are viaducts over the many lines of railways. A cable could not be successfully operated crossing so many railway tracks. There is yet no general movement to have these viaducts built. Only one or two roads are doing anything in that direction. If viaducts were put over all the tracks and the Healy slip closed we would then consider the question of cabling the avenue.

HEALY SCHOOL

Chicago Tribune, May 26, 1885

Board of Education.
The Board of Education met last evening. It was decided to name the new school to be erected at the corner of Thirty-first and Wallace streets the Heal School, in honor of the late Robert Healy.

HEALY SCHOOL

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