| By 1887, it was decided to reverse the flow of the Chicago River through civil engineering. Engineer Isham Randolph noted that a ridge about 12 miles from the lake shore divided the Mississippi River drainage system from the Great Lakes drainage system. A plan soon emerged to cut through that ridge and carry waste water away from the lake, through the Des Plaines and Illinois rivers, to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The canal, linking the south branch of the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River at Lockport, was completed in 1900. Construction of the Ship and Sanitary Canal was the largest earth-moving operation that had been undertaken in North America up to that time. Reference |  |