French explorers recognized the strategic importance of the area in the 1600s. For sure, a large city would eventually sprout in the area where Chicago is. Wh

French explorers recognized the strategic importance of the area in the 1600s. For sure, a large city would eventually sprout in the area where Chicago is. When France ceded the lands of the Illinois Country (east of the Mississippi) to Great Britain in the 1700s, all the French had to GTFO. St Louis was the highest land along the Mississippi anywhere close to the confluences of the Missouri, Ohio and Illinois rivers. Since the Mississippi flooded almost every spring, this was the best place to put a city and it allowed the French to maintain more control over the area than they were supposed to have. The railroads were built by men, however, and could have gone anywhere. The negotiations and influencing that got them all built through Chicago has had a huge ROI for the last 150+ years.