January 1790

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, a Black Haitian fur trader, builds a substantial trading post on the north bank of the Chicago River around 1790. His compound includes a house, bakehouse, dairy, poultry house, smokehouse, stable, mill, and farm — a thriving enterprise that becomes the nucleus of what grows into the city of Chicago.

Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a Haitian-born man of African descent, built a prosperous trading settlement at the mouth of the Chicago River on Lake Michigan — the first permanent non-Indigenous settlement at the site of present-day Chicago. His substantial homestead included a house, bakehouse, poultry house, stable, mill, and dairy, making him a significant figure in early American frontier commerce.