A People United and Represented

1837: The city of Chicago was incorporated — and Pilsen began to emerge

The original municipal boundaries included most of what we now know as Pilsen. It was fairly removed from the rest of the city — west of the business district, tucked into a bend in the Chicago River’s South Branch. This, and the fact that the land was low-lying and prone to flooding, made the area a difficult place to live. A cholera epidemic in the 1850s killed one in every 36 residents. 

Nevertheless, immigrant workers began moving to the area in 1836, having been recruited to work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Over the next 20 years, various construction projects would make Pilsen more viable. It became more accessible after bridges and tunnels were built on the West Side. The Burlington Railroad connected Pilsen to the business district. Following the completion of the canal, lumber yards, steel mills, and other industries began popping up along the banks of the river. 

The population in Pilsen quadrupled during the 1850s, reaching over 200,000 people. Bohemians, Germans, and Poles gradually replaced the Irish immigrants who had originally settled in the area. From the beginning, Pilsen was a port of entry for the city’s growing immigrant population.

1877: The Great Upheaval & The Battle of the Viaduct

By the mid-1870s, Pilsen was an industrial center in Chicago. Immigrant communities living in Pilsen worked for companies like the Chicago Stove Works Foundry, McCormick Reaper Works, and the Goss & Phillips Manufacturing Co., as well as the neighboring Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and lumberyards. But the depression hadn’t spared industrial workers; bosses were slashing wages throughout the city. Stone-cutters and lumber workers went on strike.

And this was a national issue. Discontent grew among railroad workers, in particular; the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad made two 10% wage cuts in less than a year, despite turning a profit. In the summer of 1877, railroad workers in West Virginia went on strike. They were joined by railroad workers in Pittsburgh and Baltimore. It was the beginning of a national shift in worker sentiment known as the “Great Upheaval.” The St. Louis Republican called it a “labor revolution.” 

Chicago workers gathered in Pilsen shortly after the beginning of the Great Upheaval and passed a resolution expressing support for the strikers. Two days later, at least 25,000 Chicagoans attended a rally downtown, and organizers issued a manifesto to the “Workingmen of Chicago.” 

Rallies continued throughout the city. In Pilsen, tensions between workers and the state escalated in the Battle of the Viaduct. Police killed almost 30 workers and injured 200 people, including onlookers. Bohemians, who tended to be socialists and freethinkers, were blamed for the conflict alongside Poles.

1900 – 1960: Demographic shifts in Pilsen

Immigrants from Bohemia (part of the modern-day Czech Republic) started congregating in Pilsen in the mid-1800s, after police raided their settlement on the North Side at the behest of the mayor. The area was redeveloped and would come to be known as the Gold Coast — making them one of the first populations in Chicago to suffer as a consequence of redevelopment. 

Evicted from their homes, Bohemians went west. By 1910, Pilsen was home to the largest Bohemian community in America. Poles, Lithuanians, Croats, and Germans also formed communities there.

Many Bohemians identified as socialists and Freethinkers. The population on the whole played an important role in the labor movement; Bohemian people were on the front lines in the Battle of the Viaduct, with women collecting stones in their aprons and raining them down on their opponents. 

In the early 20th century, overcrowding in Pilsen became an issue. In 1901, the reformer Robert Hunter reported that 7,000 people lived within a nine-block area. The Bohemian population began leaving for the suburbs in droves. This exodus was further facilitated by the population’s improving socioeconomic status and the arrival of Latinos in Pilsen, which kicked off a rash of white flight.

Like the Bohemians that came before them, the story of the Mexican population that landed in Pilsen begins with displacement. The construction of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Circle Campus required that entire communities be bulldozed. Latino families started moving south, to an industrial neighborhood on the river. By the 1960s, Pilsen had become a predominantly Mexican American neighborhood; by the 80s, over 80% of the population was comprised of Mexican immigrants and their children. 

1977: Benito Juarez High School opens

In the 1960s and 70s, Mexican Americans in Pilsen began cultivating clout. This shift was reflected in the revitalization of some of Pilsen’s institutions. The Latin American Alliance for Social Progress took over the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council. Howell Neighborhood House, a church-affiliated settlement house, became an independent organization known as Casa Aztlán​​, creating a space for grassroots movements to flourish. 

One of the major achievements of organizers in Pilsen was the attainment of a local high school. Prior to 1977, kids in Pilsen were bussed over to schools in adjacent neighborhoods. Oftentimes, there were no options for students who didn’t speak English, and dropout rates were high. 

Parents demanded better educational opportunities for their children. They gathered signatures, boycotted other local schools, and conducted sit-ins. Ground-breaking for Benito Juárez High School (now known as Benito Juárez Community Academy) took place in 1975. In keeping with the momentum of the Chicano movement, the school was designed to inspire cultural pride; the architect, Mexican himself, included allusions to the country’s art and architecture. The school opened its doors two years later. 

1866: Adolph J. Sabath was born in Zabori, Bohemia.

1872-1873: The Bread Riot

In 1871, the Great Chicago Fire obliterated Chicago’s downtown. Though the fire started on the West side, Pilsen was largely spared, and many displaced businesses set up shop in the neighborhood. Most went back once the downtown had been rebuilt (leaving empty storefronts and unemployment in their wake) — but a few heavy hitters, including lumberyards and McCormick Reaper Works, remained in the area. 

Still, the prosperity Pilsen experienced in the aftermath of the fire would be short-lived. Rates of unemployment and poverty were increasing — for Pilsen, the city, and the nation. A banking crisis caused many workers to lose their savings and sent the U.S. into a depression that would last until the end of the decade. Roughly 20% of U.S. workers were unemployed by 1877. Folks across the nation came to Chicago in search of employment; many slept in tunnels and police stations.

Chicagoans began to direct their discontent towards political action. Take the “Bread Riot,” for example: Though the city had raised funds to provide financial assistance to Chicagoans after the fire, citizens suspected the money was being misused. They marched on the Relief and Aid Society in the thousands. Protesters were chased into the LaSalle Street tunnel and beaten by Chicago police — part of a broader trend of police violence directed towards ethnic workers in this time period. 

Immigrant Chicagoans also formed political parties. In an 1873 election, the newly-formed “People’s Party” — a coalition of immigrant communities — gained control of the City Council and the Mayorship. The Workingmen’s Party of Illinois, formed in 1874, was less successful at the polls — potentially due to interference by the opposition.

1881: Adolph J. Sabbath emigrated from Bohemia to the U.S.

1886: The Haymarket Affair

By 1886, roughly a quarter of the American labor movement was in Chicago — with much of the organizing taking place in Pilsen and the West Side. On May 1, 80,000 workers in Chicago would march for the eight-hour work day. Two days later, police attacked workers picketing the McCormick Reaper Works; dozens were wounded and at least two were killed. 

Simmering tensions between the city and the working class boiled over the next day, when Chicago police attempted to break up a rally protesting the violence at McCormick. It was raining, and the gathering at Haymarket Square had dwindled when the police arrived with nearly one armed officer for every protester. An unknown member of the crowd threw a stick of dynamite. The police shot into the crowd, killing at least 11 people — including their own men — and injuring dozens more. 

Eight men, including leaders of the labor movement, were blamed for the violence. After a notoriously shady trial — most of the accused were absent when the dynamite was thrown — four of the “Haymarket 8” were publicly executed, and another died in his cell. In 1893, Governor Peter Altgeld pardoned the three surviving members.

The trial shocked the nation, and it had a ripple effect on the labor movement. It gave workers the eight-hour work day. The “Haymarket 8” became martyrs. “May Day” is still celebrated around the world, commemorating the sacrifices made by workers for the labor movement. But these events also sparked hysteria among the wealthy and ruling class — nationally and in Chicago. Sentiment turned against the labor movement and the immigrant communities that supported it; the radical Knights of Labor saw declines in membership, and the more moderate American Federation of Labor became a popular alternative.

1906: Adolph J. Sabath was elected to Congress for the first time. He represented Ilinois’ 5th District. 

1952: Adolph J. Sabath dies two days after being reelected to his 24th term.

1968: “Metafísica” is painted in Pilsen

In the early 20th century, the Mexican government began paying artists to paint murals, providing their communities with educational materials that were accessible and beautiful. This movement made its way to Pilsen in 1968, when Mario Castillo painted “Metafísica,” AKA “Peace.” The work was explicitly anti-war — one of the first murals protesting the Vietnam war in Chicago — but it had another purpose, too. It honored and validated the Mexican identity, which Castillo felt deserved more of a platform. 

This was a core tenet of the Chicano movement, which was taking off in Pilsen at the time: preserving Mexican identity, celebrating it, and empowering the community in the process. “Metafísica” was considered the first Chicano mural in the United States.

Other murals followed, each with a message. “Hay Cultura en Nuestra Comunidad,” “Che,” and “Sí Se Puede” all came within a decade of “Metafísica.” These works and the ones that followed became important representations of Pilsen’s political and cultural scene. When a historic mural was painted over by a developer, the outcry was such that he paid the original artist to come back and restore it. 

This artistic tradition has stayed alive in Pilsen through the decades; 16th Street has become synonymous with the artwork. In 2021, three longtime Pilsen residents completed a newer work on the side of the Pilsen Housing Cooperative: “Fight to Stay.”

2025: Pilsen residents rally in the face of displacement

In December of 2024, the nation’s new border czar announced that Chicago would be ground zero for a mass deportation effort under the forthcoming Trump administration. Since then, raids have been conducted in majority-Latino Chicago neighborhoods; hundreds of arrests have been made in Chicagoland; residents have been missing school and work, and the annual Cinco de Mayo parade was canceled for fear attendees will be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Activists and politicians in Pilsen and beyond have rallied to keep their communities informed and protected, with ICE officials publicly bemoaning the effectiveness of the “Know Your Rights” campaign. But even if the raids were to end tomorrow, the threat of displacement would not. 

The immigrant community in Pilsen has experienced gentrification as a decades-long squeeze. As early as 1973, business leaders in Chicago proposed a revitalization project that would involve the construction of a “Super Loop” — including luxury condos, shopping, and recreation — cutting right through Pilsen. Organizers from the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council (PNCC) put out a document called “El Llamado” — “The Call,” asking their community to join them in protesting the development. They succeeded.

Similar situations had played out in the 80s, 90s, and 2010s: Pilsen residents prevented an old Pilsen Brewery from being turned into a residential and performing arts complex. Pilsen residents prevented the mayor from redeveloping Pilsen in an effort to host the 1992 World’s Fair. Pilsen residents convinced their Alderman to adopt a 21% affordable housing mandate for new developers.

Nonetheless, bit by bit, Pilsen is gentrifying. The area’s median household income jumped from $43,000 in 2009 to nearly $60,000 in 2020. It’s still a majority-Latino neighborhood, but the percentage of Hispanic residents has fallen by 17% since 1990. Today, organizations like the Pilsen Alliance and the El Paseo Community Garden work to protect and unite their community, carrying on the legacy of generations of immigrant activists in Pilsen.