Chicago lake tunnel
The Chicago Lake Tunnel was the first of several tunnels built from the city of Chicago's shore on Lake Michigan two miles out into the lake to access unpolluted fresh water far from the city's sewage. Waterborne disease in early Chicago In the early decades of its existence, the growing city was only about three feet above the surface of Lake Michigan, and the areas of early European settlement were flat and sandy with a high water table. European settlers in Chicago only needed to dig 6 to 12 feet to create a private well. The same settlers, however, would also dig privy vaults for human waste nearby. Because the sandy soil topped a layer of hard clay, human waste would sink from the outhouse, meet the impervious clay, and travel laterally into the freshwater supply. As a result, Chicago suffered numerous widespread outbreaks of waterborne diseases. The Chicago Board of Health was organized in 1835, in response to the threat of a cholera epidemic, and later outbreaks of cholera in 1852 and 1854 killed thousands. Chesbrough's Water Plan In 1855 the city’s newly formed Board of Sewerage Commissioners hired the 42-year-old Ellis S. Chesbrough (1813–1886), the first city engineer