Spaniards, in cruelty the only rivals of the North American aborigines. * * * * * What is the reason for the intense interest and curiosity which clusters about this story of violence and rapine, of heroism, anguish and death? Other massacres have blotted with blood the pages of American history. From Deerfield and Schenectady to the Little Bighorn, our devoted bands have perished at the hands of the American Indian; and each dark day is suffered to rest as a mere tradition, buried in the half-forgotten folk-lore of its time and place. Why does the Fort Dearborn massacre, involving only a few score souls, hold a different rank in our hearts? It is because the footsteps of millions are passing over the spot where it all happened; steamers are churning its peaceful waters; bells and steam-whistles are rending the air that bore away the sound of gun-shots, war-whoops and dying cries; and the sculptors' art is putting into immortal bronze the memory of its incidents. Thus does it gain an _ex post facto_ importance and a posthumous fame. [Illustration: BLOCK-HOUSE TABLET] Transcription of Block-House Tablet: BLOCK HOUSE OF FORT DEARBORN This building occupies the site of old Fort Dearborn which extended a little across Mich. Ave. and somewhat into the River as it now is. The Fort was built in 1803 & 4. Forming our outmost defense. By order of Gen. Hull it was evacuated Aug. 15, 1812 after its stores and provisions had been distributed among the Indians. Very soon after the Indians attacked and massacred about fifty of the troops and a number of citizens including women and children and next day burned the Fort. In 1816 it was re-built, but after the Black-hawk War it went into gradual disuse and in May 1857 when it was torn down, excepting a single building, which stood upon this site till the Great Fire of Oct. 9, 1871. At the suggestion of the Chicago Historical Society this tablet was erected by Nov. 1889. W. M. Hoyt. Among the world's great cities, Chicago should be the one most thoroughly recorded. No other that counts her denizens by the million has among them those born before her annals fairly began. No other has had such startling vicissitudes. Laid low by slaughter in her infancy and by fire in her youth, she has climbed with bounding steps, upward and onward. Toiling, enduring, laughing, prospering, exulting; she has taken each scourge as a fillip to her energy, each spur as a stimulus to her courage. Hers is the enthusiasm of youth with the strength of maturity. The early days of Paris and London are lost in half-mythical shadow. Even if told, their incidents might fail to match in interest those which have befallen their young sister. So much the more zealously should we who love this youthful aspirant for fame, take care that the romance of her childhood shall be preserved and handed down to posterity.