Following the war , a second Fort Dearborn was built ( 1816 ) . This fort consisted of a double wall of wooden palisades , officer and enlisted barracks , a garden , and other buildings . The American forces garrisoned the fort until 1823 , when peace with the Indians led the garrison to be deemed redundant . This temporary abandonment lasted until 1828 , when it was re-garrisoned following the outbreak of war with the Winnebago Indians . In her 1856 memoir '' Wau Bun '' , Juliette Kinzie described the fort as it appeared on her arrival in Chicago in 1831 : The fort was closed briefly before the Black Hawk War of 1832 and by 1837 , the fort was being used by the Superintendent of Harbor Works . In 1837 , the fort and its reserve , including part of the land that became Grant Park , was deeded to the city by the Federal Government . In 1855 part of the fort was demolished so that the south bank of the Chicago River could be dredged , straightening the bend in the river and widening it at this point by about ; and in 1857 , a fire destroyed nearly all the remaining buildings in the fort . The remaining blockhouse and few surviving outbuildings were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
Fort Dearborn