Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable
1750 – August 28, 1818
He founded Chicagothe third largest city in the United States of America and was the first settler in Chicago. He arrived from Europe in 1770s. He married a Native Potawatomi Indian woman (Kittahawa) & founded first trading post in area. The Town of Chicago was organized with a population of 350, August 1833. Born in Saint-Marc, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), he built the first permanent settlement at the mouth of the river just east of present Michigan Avenue Bridge on the north bank.
A school, museum, harbor, park and bridge have been named, or renamed, in his honor; and the place where he settled at the mouth of the Chicago River in the 1780s is recognized as a National Historic Landmark, now located in Pioneer Court.