In 1837 Chicago got its first city charter, and it then had about forty-two hundred people. The rapid growth since has been unparalleled, especially when, after 1850, its commercial enterprise began attracting wide attention, the population then being about thirty thousand. In 1855, to get above the swamp and improve the drainage, the level of the entire city was raised seven feet, huge buildings being elevated bodily while business was progressing, an enterprise mainly accomplished by the ingenious devices which first gave prominence to the late George M. Pullman. The population almost quadrupled and its trade increased tenfold in the decade 1850-60, and in 1870 the population was over three hundred thousand, and it had become a leading American city. Yet Chicago has had terrible setbacks in its wonderful career, the most awful being the fire in October, 1871, the greatest of modern times, which raged for three days, burned over a surface of nearly four square miles and until practically nothing remained in the district to devour, destroyed eighteen thousand buildings, two hundred lives, and property valued at $200,000,000, leaving a hundred thousand people homeless--a calamity that excited the sympathies of the world, which gave relief contributions aggregating $7,000,000. Yet while the embers were smoking, this enterprising people set to work to rebuild their city with a will and a progress which caused almost as much amazement as the original catastrophe. The recovery was complete; the city which had been of wood was rebuilt of brick and stone and iron and steel, and its progress since has developed an energy not before equalled. It has been beautified by grand parks and boulevards, and by the construction of palatial residences and business blocks, and of enormous office buildings, the tall "sky-scrapers" having been first invented and built in Chicago. In 1893 the World's Columbian Exhibition, to celebrate the discovery of America, was held at Chicago on a vast scale and with remarkable success. The city has long been, also, a favorite meeting-place for the great political Conventions nominating candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, its large hotel capacity and immense halls giving advantages for these enormous assemblages. CHICAGO'S ADMIRABLE LOCATION.