Travel and Places: Chicago & St. Patrick's Day

The Chicago River,156 miles long, flows through downtown Chicago, Illinois. The river is not particularly long, but is notable for a 19th-century civil engineering feat which directed its flow south, away from the city (and Lake Michigan) and towards the Mississippi River basin for sanitation purposes. City pollution-control workers use dyes to trace illegal sewage discharges into the river routinely. In 1961, Stephen Bailey saw a plumber who was wearing white coveralls dyed a perfect Irish shade of green. When Stephen Bailey learned that the dye used to detect leaks into the river was responsible for the green overalls, a Chicago tradition was born. That year, they released 100 pounds of green vegetable dye into the river—enough to keep it green for a week! Today, in order to minimize environmental damage, only forty pounds of dye are used, making the river green for only several hours. Mike Butler and his crew claim to have a little help from a leprechaun. Initially, the dye is orange. After a moment or two it turns emerald green. Butler attributes the change to leprechaun magic. Stephen Bailey said that the road from Chicago to Ireland is marked in green. From the Chicago River to the Illinois River, then to the Mississippi, up the Gulf Stream and across the Atlantic you can see the beautiful green enter the Irish Sea, clearly marking the way from Chicago to Ireland.