142 for the start of building houses as well as drilling wells and sewers.1 There are two prime examples of this. A building called the Elgin Academy was built in 1856, four years after being founded.2 The academy is now education for Elgin’s young, gifted, and talented students. The other building is a house that was built around 1845 on 443 E Chicago Street in Elgin.3 The effects of having a river next to a place were already proving to have urbanized it really quickly. However, those activities had a small negative effect on the Fox River which included sediments being washed into the river from drilling wells.4 At the time, it wouldn’t be an issue, not until later. The Fox River would continue to be prevalent for the residents of Elgin. A source of drinking water was a necessity for residents so the City of Elgin served them water from the Fox River in the 1880s.5 No treatment was performed on the Fox River, however, residents were able to tell that the water was of rich quality. They knew this because later on in the 1900s, more and more communities were using the Fox River beside the people of Elgin.6 There were people from the north and people from the south also using the Fox River for their own purposes besides drinking water. Recreation and industry were also used on the Fox River. It meant multiple areas were all polluting the Fox River in the aftermath of urbanization.7 This all led to the Fox River becoming more prevalent in waterborne diseases and becoming unusable as it was stripped of its natural resources which made the Fox River so valuable in the first place. This did not stop Elgin’s growth as there was one major cooperation named the “Elgin National Watch Company” that kept Elgin stable before and after the Fox River was becoming unusable. The Elgin National Watch Company, founded in 1864, manufactured and was one of the 1 Water Science School, Urbanization and Water Quality 2 Encyclopedia of Chicago, “Elgin, IL” 3 443 E. Chicago Street, Historic Elgin 4 Water Science School, Urbanization and Water Quality 5 City of Elgin, History of Fox River 6 Ibid. 7 Farmer, Sarah, Streams through the City: Water Quality and Quantity
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