Windy City Historians Podcast

About Windy City Historians Podcast

Windy City Historians Podcast is a podcast on and about Chicago history for anyone curious about the Windy City hosted by authors Christopher Lynch and Patrick McBriarty.

Publisher

Christopher Lynch & Patrick McBriarty

Category

history

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

4 Feb 2019

Latest episode

3 Jun 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 36 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   3 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Episode 32 – Muddy Ground, Revisited

   Host John William Nelson Ph.D. revisits Chicago's portages and continental transformation with the Windy City Historians, exploring historic threads and legacies.

2. 

   1 Aug 2025

   Episode 31 – Muddy Ground

   In the Twentieth Century, Chicago’s Midway Airport had a sign that read “Crossroads of the World,” and during its heyday Midway literally was the aviation center of the world.  From a historical perspective the same has been true for Chicago reaching back a century earlier as a critical hub of the railroads, during the Industrial Age as a center for trade and manufacturing, and for centuries before a meeting place for uncounted generations of Native Americans. The geographic reality was that where the Chicago river and estuaries of the Chicago region meet the southwest corner of Lake Michigan attracted indigenous peoples, Potawatomi, Miami, Anishinaabeg, Ho-Chunk, or Sauk and assuredly others portaging the divide, arriving by canoe or on foot.  Sometimes they stayed for a while or moved with the migration of the game and seasonal changes. Hence this place called Chicago despite the low lying, swampy, muddy, and unattractive ground due to it's elemental location and convenient waterways has continued for centuries to be a key to the continent. This juxtaposition has spawned innumerable books on Chicago. In this episode we talk with author and Associate Professor of History John William Nelson Ph.D. about his recently published book Muddy Ground; Native Peoples, Chicago’s Portage, and the Transformation of a Continent. This exhaustive history underpinned by impressive research re-enforces the basic fact that geography frequently dictates the destiny of an area and out of this meeting place and important key transportation link to the continent this muddy ground eventually gave rise to a mighty city.  Dr. Nelson’s book brings important new insights and a fresh perspective on the Canon of portage history for Chicago to offer the reader a fresh perspective of the region and its importance for Native Americans and foundational story of Chicago's origin and settlement. Links to Research and Historic Sources: The book, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650–1815, (Studies in North American Indian History), by Richard White (2010) Explore the "Life of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard" on the Chicago Portage website The book, The Autobiography of Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard, by Gurdon Hubbard (1912) The 1928 map of The location of the Chicago portage route of the seventeenth century by Robert Knight and Lucius H. Zeuch on the Chicago Portage website Wikipedia biography of Frederick Jackson Turner, (1861-1932) Historian -- originator of the theory of the American frontier as a culture Archer Butler Hulbert (1873-1933) during his lifetime created and collected an amazing depth history and research most notably the 16 volume set entitled the Historic Highways of America University of Houston, Cullen College of Engineering website, "The Indian Canoe" by John Leinhart Wikipedia webpage on Pays d’en Haut - literally a French phrase translating to, "Upper Country" James H. Merrill, Ph.D. - a professor of history at Vasser College is the foremost expert on the interactions between colonialists and American Indians in early American history, and scholars agree Merrell’s work has helped shape the contemporary study of American Indian and early American history. "Pierre Margry Collection" translations at the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library of early accounts and research from the Paris Archives by French historian Pierre Margry (1818-1894)

3. 

   15 Sept 2024

   Special Episode – Champlain’s Dream

   In this special episode of the Windy City Historians we revisit our discussion of Jean Nicolet in late historian John Swenson's last interview.

Inside a recent episode

Episode 32 – Muddy Ground, Revisited

Published 3 Jun 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Now maybe I like him because he was a Vermonter like myself. He was from Bennington and his father was president of Middlebury College. And Archer was a geographer as well as a historian. And like Thwaites, he was one of these Victorian historians who generated an unbelievable amount of scholarship. […]

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Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.8 / 5

40 ratings

Spotify

4.7 / 5

12 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 28 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

36

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

51

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