How railroads broke barriers in Chicago:

The economic and population impact of Chicago was clearly a significant success. The population more than tripled and industry boomed. Chicago became one of the leading cities in the United States as a major market place, surpassing cities such as St Louis that depended on steamboat travel.

Year	Population
1845	12088
1846	14169
1847	16859
1848	20035
1849	23047
1850	28269
1852	38733
1853	60652
1854	65872
1855	83500

Time Line of Population Growth as the Railroad system develops in Chicago, along with growth it’s easy to show that economic development goes hand in hand with the growth. The population grew 25 times from 1848 to 1880:

1832—Chicago has 200 residents. The population will climb to 350 by next year.
1837—Chicago incorporated as a city. There are 4,170 residents.
1840—There will be 2,818 miles of railroad track across the eastern United States. Chicago has 4,470 residents.
1848—The Galena and Chicago Union line is completed to the Des Plains River and brings a load of wheat into Chicago. Chicago has 20,023 residents.
1850—At the beginning of this decade, Illinois will have about 100 miles of railroad track. Congress will pass legislation for granting public lands in Illinois for a central railroad. This will provide the financial backing to start the Illinois Central Railroad. Nationally, there will be 9,021 miles of railroad track. Chicago has 29,963 residents, of which one-half are foreign born.
1855—The Galena and Chicago Union line reaches the Mississippi River. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad is formed out of several smaller lines servicing these cities. Chicago has 80,028 residents.
1856—The Chicago main line of the Illinois Central Railroad is finished. Now 700 miles long, the IC is the longest railroad in the United States and the world. In this era of the 1850s, over 10,000 workers, many Irish, are recruited to work on the IC. The Chicago and Rock Island Railroad builds the first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River.
1857—Chicago is now the terminus for eleven railroad lines. In this same year, 48 projects are either completed or under construction for new railroad lines in Illinois. Chicago has 93,000 residents.
1860—Illinois now has 2,790 miles of railroad track and 1.7 million people (10 times the population just 30 years earlier). By the beginning of this decade, Chicago will have 104 trains a day coming into the city. There will be 30,635 miles of track across the United States. Chicago now has 109,260 residents.
1870— Within this decade there will be ten railroad bridges crossing the Mississippi River and 73% of the land in Illinois will be within five miles of a railroad line. Chicago has 298,977 residents.
1880—By the beginning of this decade, Illinois will have 7,851 miles of railroad track, the most of any state in the nation. By the end of the 1880s, Illinois will possess 10,214 additional miles of new track. Chicago has 503,185 residents.

Ore Shipments in Chicago.


Passenger train in the 1850's.

Picture of the Union Stock Yards next to a railway. (Left)

A perfect example on how the railroads impacted the Chicago economy are the Union Stock Yards, where meat was shipped by railroad. Chicago became the leading meat packing city in The United States. Earning the nickname “hog butcher of the world”.

By 1860 the city became the nation's trans-shipment and warehousing center. Factories were created, most famously the harvester factory opened in by Cyrus Hall McCormick. It was a processing center for natural resource commodities extracted in the West. Wisconsin forests supported the millwork and lumber business; Illinois hinterland provided the wheat. Hundreds of thousands of hogs and cattle were shipped to Chicago for slaughter, preserved in salt, and transported to eastern markets. By 1870 refrigerated cars allowed the shipping of fresh meat to eastern cities