The Tribune Tower is one of Chicago’s iconic landmarks; it was designed by a guy who liked his buildings tall, his women quiet, and his buttresses flying. It’s a tourist destination: people flock from all over the world to take pictures of themselves in front of it, or in front of the statue of that upstanding hottie, Nathan Hale, tucked up within the Gothic twiddly bits of the Tribune Tower’s Michigan Avenue face. I was not really that interested in the Tribune Tower; I’d photographed it many times before. I was interested in the bridge in this shot, I liked its angle, and the way it looked in the orange glow of soon-to-be-extinct sodium vapor light. For decades, I’ve crossed the Michigan Avenue Bridge, recognizing it only as That Bridge on Michigan Avenue. I recognized its significance as one of those “fixed trunnion bascule bridge” thingies. Trunnions are those protruding support doohickies on the sides of cannons; they allowed the cannon-shooters to raise or lower the muzzle of the cannon in question: undoubtedly so that the bad guys could get blown into squishy, wet shrapnel before they got the chance to do whatever other bad guy stuff they were up to. That bridge allowing Michigan Avenue to cross the Chicago river has trunnions. It’s also a double decker bridge. In October of 2010, history was made in Chicago, and it wasn’t really in the news, though in defense of Chicago media, I’m not in the habit of paying much attention to the news. At any rate, in October of 2010, the Michigan Avenue fixed trunnion bascule bridge—with two levels, was officially renamed. It didn’t receive just any name. It wasn’t turned into an experiment in corporate branding, and that Willis guy had nothing to do with it, either. In October of 2010—when I wasn’t paying attention—the Michigan Avenue fixed trunnion bascule bridge, with two levels was officially re-christened [insert drum-roll here]: The DuSable Bridge. This for me, is a pretty big deal! Jean Baptiste Point DuSable was born in Haiti in the mid 1700s. His mother was an African slave and his father was a French mariner. Though his mother was a slave, he was free. In the late 1700s, he moved a bit farther north than Haiti and came to a grinding halt at the bottom tip of Lake Michigan. At this time, he found himself in the midst of a trade zone for the Potawatomi, Ojibwe and Lakota tribal nations. Despite the stinky skunk cabbage and wild onions growing in the swampy soil, it was a pretty sweet piece of local real-estate; there were probably a number of lighthouses in the area, since the Potawatomis had a habit of building those things, for non-nautical reasons, and as history goes, Jean Baptiste Point DuSable moved in and established a trading post, it did not, however, sell light bulbs to Patawatomi lighthouse keepers. Eventually, he married a Potawatomi woman named Kittihawa (In Potawatomi, her name means "Kittihawa") and made two kids who were promptly named Suzanne and Jean. In 1800, he had enough…well, he probably just wanted to go somewhere with better weather. At any rate, in 1800 he left and made his way to Saint Charles, in Missouri. Today, there’s an under-funded high school and an African American history museum named for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, but it was not until 2010 that a piece of municipal property was given his name. It was his trading post that ultimately gave rise to the city, which—not surprisingly—bears that trading post’s name. There should be an area of Chicago named after him, but it’s nice that there is at least a fixed trunnion bascule bridge, with two levels that now bears his name. Given Chicago's history and narrow, ethnically-divisive habits, that's a pretty big deal. As always, thank you for viewing, reading, and commenting, and I hope you’re all having a great (slightly warmer than Chicago’s current temperature) week.