Seventeenth Century Forts in The Chicago Area
A number of temporary, small fortified trading posts were constructed in the Chicago area in the late seventeenth century. The exact location of many of these trading posts is uncertain, and, though they were sometimes referred to as forts, there is no evidence for a permanent French military fortification in the Chicago area during this period.
In a letter written by the explorer LaSalle dated June 4, 1683, he notes that two of his men had constructed a temporary stockade at the Chicago Portage in the winter of 1682. However, this structure was little more than a log cabin and was never garrisoned.
The earliest mention of a Fort of Chicagou, possibly located at the mouth of the Chicago River, appears in a memoir written by Henri de Tonty in 1693 in which he recounted an overland journey from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis that he made during the winter of 1685/1686:
I embarked, therefore for the Illinois, on St. Andrew's Day 1685; but being stopped by the ice, I was obliged to leave my canoe and to proceed on by land. After going 120 leagues, I arrived at the Fort of Chicagou, where M. de la Durantaye commanded; and from thence I came to Fort St. Louis, where I arrived in the middle of January, 1686.However, an account of the same journey written by Tonty in the summer of 1686 makes no mention of the fort, and can be interpreted to suggest that the fort he visited was actually at the mouth of the St. Joseph River on the east side of Lake Michigan. Further evidence that Durantaye's fort was not located beside the Chicago River comes from the journals of Henri Joutel. In October 1687 Joutel, and a party of LaSalle's men left Fort St. Louis bound for Canada, however, when they arrived at Lake Michigan poor weather prevented them from going any further. After waiting for eight days by the lake at the mouth of the Chicago River, they gave up and returned to Fort St. Louis. They set out again in March 1688, arriving at Chicago on March 29, and leaving on April 8. Joutel described their stay in Chicago, but made no mention of a fort.
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