South Chicago, formerly known as Ainsworth, is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois. This chevron-shaped community is one of Chicago's 16 lakefront neighborhoods near the southern rim of Lake Michigan 10 miles south of downtown. A working-class neighborhood, it is bordered by East 79th Street on the north, South Chicago Avenue (the Chicago Skyway) on the southwest, a small stretch of East 95th Street on the south. With the Calumet River on the community's southeast side, South Chicago can be considered the gateway to the Calumet Region and the one of the four Chicago neighborhoods (East Side, Hegewisch and South Deering) that are considered by the locals as part of Chicago's Southeast Side. The Southeast Side is a description that the city itself continues to resist, including this neighborhood with all of Chicago's South Side communities. History Once a separate community, South Chicago began as a series of scattered Native American settlements before becoming a village. First occupied by a chief named Askhum, considered 'lord' of the vast Callimink (Calumet) Valley and leader of the Pottawatomie people. They and other Native peoples used South Chicago and the shallow Calumet River area as portages, for seasonal settlements, hunting and fishing thousands of years before White settlers arrived to the "New World". The post-Civil War era brought with it great industrial innovation. Developer James H. Bowen, the "Father of South Chicago," and others in a massive land grab wrested the land from its former existence and founded "Ainsworth" among other communities. This community was formed out of wetland prairie to provide residence for the labor force of European immigrants coming to work at the industries developing along the Calumet River, most notably the North Chicago Rolling Mill Company, built at the mouth of the river in 1881. Only fractions of the original topography and habitat remain as is the case with most of urban Chicago. With the entire Chicago Lakefront built on miles of landfill and slag there still remains a small stretch of semi-secluded beachfront just north of the Southworks Site. This bit of lakefront, once a seasonal settlement for the Pottawatomie, was left alone due to an unmovable and deeply embedded bedrock of granite, which defied the development techniques of the time. It is the only natural beach frontage left and virtually unknown on the entire Chicago coastline. This beachfront and the massive outcrop of the Southworks