Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive was originally constructed as a meandering road along the city’s lakefront. It permitted access to parks, museums and beaches. In 1937 the south segment of the drive and its north counterpart were joined when the Outer Drive Bridge over the Chicago river was built. This section of drive ran from Monroe to Oak streets. Until then, the south side drive stopped at Monroe St., and the north Outer Drive ran from Oak St. to Foster Ave.
The purpose of the Depression-era addition was to give Northsiders the ability to drive on a non-commercial street to what’s now the Museum Campus and offered Southsiders access to the Lincoln Park Zoo. Clearly, the original purpose of the roadway was to make a family’s Sunday outing a more pleasant experience.
Today the purpose has changed and the roadway has become a major highway, unfortunately the design of the road has not kept pace with its use. The connecting segment was poorly designed with sharp accident-inducing “S” curves on both ends of the new addition. The northerly “S” remains a problem but in 1982 a major reconstruction project that cost $98 million and required four years to complete smoothed out the southerly “S”.
This cache is located near the heart of the new and improved southern end of Dead Man’s Curve. You are looking for a Decon container.
Sources: Inside Publications and the Chicago Public Library
This is a revival of two previous archived caches by me Dead Man's Curve Redux and Chicago History 103 - Dead Man's Curve by TheBaers originally hidden 06/01/2006