Fort of Chicagou

Fort Chécagou, or Fort Chicago, was a purported seventeenth-century fort that may have been located in what is now northeastern Illinois. The name has become associated with a myth that the French continuously maintained a military garrison at a fort near the mouth of the Chicago River, and the future site of the city of Chicago on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. Some sources mention that the fort was built in 1685, and that Henri de Tonti sent his aide, Pierre-Charles de Liette, as commander of the fort through 1702. Although this fort was marked on a number of eighteenth century maps of the area, there is no evidence that it ever existed at the described location, but may have instead actually been located at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Before the arrival of the French missionaries, the swampy area was inhabited by small settlements of Native Americans on the southern coast of Lake Michigan. Their community was made up of Algonquian people of the Mascoutens and Miamis tribes, which hunted the area. The French missionaries were the first Europeans to come into this region. The settlements of Algonquian people in the area were used as trading posts on the trade routes by the French fur traders and trappers. The word Chécagou was probably coined from the French word shikaakwa, which means "wild leek" or "skunk weed".

A number of small, temporary fortified trading posts were constructed in the area in the late seventeenth century. The exact location of most of these trading posts is uncertain, and, although they were sometimes referred to as "forts," there is no evidence of a permanent French military fortification in the area during this period.

In a letter written by the explorer de LaSalle dated June 4, 1683, he notes that two of his men had constructed a temporary at the Chicago Portage in the winter of 1682. However, this structure was little more than a log cabin and was never garrisoned.

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