Look at the bridge finally carrying the name of Chicago's true founder. Around 1779, Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, a fur trader of African and French descent, built a home and trading post on the north bank of the river near here. He married Kitihawa, a Potawatomi woman, and ran the most important business at this crossroads for nearly two decades before selling out in 1800.
For generations the city honored soldiers and merchants while overlooking the Black man who came first. In 2010 the Michigan Avenue Bridge was renamed the DuSable Bridge to correct that silence. Look at the bridgehouse on the southwest tower, carved with relief sculptures of the city's origins.
Then look north up Michigan Avenue, where DuSable's modest cabin once stood on ground now lined with some of the most valuable real estate in the Midwest.