Fort Dearborn "Massacre" Statue, 1912
Carl Rohl-Smith's sculpture portraying a scene from Juliette Kinzie's account of the Fort Dearborn Massacre was commissioned by George Pullman and installed near Pullman's mansion and the presumed site of the conflict. The monument was removed from the site in 1931, and was later installed in the lobby of the Chicago Historical Society. In the 1970s American Indian groups protested the display of the monument as a false representation of Indians. With the revival of the Prairie Avenue Historic District, the statue was reinstalled near 18th Street and Prairie Avenue, close to its original site. The significance of the monument now may lie as much in its own history as in the historical events it purports to represent.
See also: City as Artifact; Historic Preservation; Native Americans; Prairie Avenue
In 1899, little more than 40 years after the second Fort Dearborn had been demolished, Chicago had a population of 1.6 million, and the landscape of the early nineteenth century had changed dramatically. The Chicago Historical Society in 1899 put on display a detailed replica of the original Fort Dearborn that had been destroyed in 1812. "Replica of the Original Fort Dearborn," Chicago Tribune, 5 March 1899.
See also: Chicago Tribune; Fort Dearborn; Newspapers
Visitors to the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition could measure Chicago's progress by walking through a replica of Fort Dearborn. In the midst of displays representing manufacturers, industrial processes, and the cultures and nations of the world, visitors could engage Chicago's history by becoming tourists of a reconstruction of a mythic part of it.
See also: Century of Progress Exposition; Fort Dearborn
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