1892 - Environment

Environment

The Sierra Club founded by John Muir and others will work to protect America's natural environment (see 1876; Muir Woods, 1908).

A concealed lake on Mont Blanc in the French Alps suddenly empties July 12, sending a wave of water down a narrow gorge; 200 residents and vacationers in the town of St. Gervais are killed in their sleep.

The New York State legislature creates Adirondack Park, setting aside the nation's largest forest reserve after years of uncontrolled logging: "The Forest Preserve shall be forever kept as wild forest lands." The initial reserve of some 2 million acres will grow to extend over nearly 6 million (2.6 million state owned)—an area larger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, and Glacier national parks combined.

New York City gets new torrents of clean drinking water as the $24 million New Croton Aqueduct is completed after 7 years of construction (see 1842; 1848; Catskill system, 1917).

Chicago breaks ground September 3 for construction of a sanitary canal that will reverse the flow of the Chicago River, which has been emptying sewage into Lake Michigan and contaminating the city's drinking water, producing epidemics of cholera and other diseases (see 1900).