Chicago fact of the day

Chicago in 1850 was a muddy frontier town of barely 30,000 people. Within two decades, it was 10 times that size. Within another two decades, that number had tripled. By 1910, Chicago — hog butcher for the world, headquarters of Montgomery Ward, the nerve center of the nation’s rail network — had more than two million residents.

That is Emily Badger on what happened to American boomtowns, via David Levine.  p.s. this doesn’t happen any more.

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