[4] The Near South Side was initially noted for wagon trails winding through a lightly populated bend of Lake Michigan.

In 1853, the community was absorbed by the extension of the city limits to 31st Street;[4] in the same period, the Illinois Central Railroad was built into Chicago.

[5] By the time of the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, it was home to some of the city's finest mansions and most elite social families, and in the 1890s the railroad's Central Station opened at 12th Street.

[6] However, by the start of the 20th century, rapid transit evolved and many families moved slightly farther from the Loop business district.

[7] The Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of the World's Fair held on the Near South Side lakefront from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial.

More than 40 million people visited the fair, which symbolized for many hope for Chicago and the nation, then in the midst of the Great Depression.

[10] West of Lake Shore Drive, much of the Near South Side, in the middle of the twentieth century, consisted largely of railroad tracks and interchanges until the 1960s, when middle-class housing developments were built in the community area.

In 1977, George Halas surrendered 51 acres (210,000 m2) of railyards for redevelopment as Dearborn Park apartments, townhouses and accompanying tree-lined walkways.

[4] A housing boom emerged in the 1990s and continues to the present day with the construction of many new condominium and apartment towers.

This was a mixed-use development on 72 acres (290,000 m2) of former rail yards and air rights east of Indiana Avenue between Roosevelt Road and 18th Street.

Simultaneously, loft conversion spread to the warehouses and light manufacturing structures along the major north-south Avenues of Michigan, Indiana, and Wabash, which returned them to residential properties 100 years after the flight of the elite Chicago socialites.

Northerly Island connects to the rest of the Museum Campus through a narrow isthmus along Solidarity Drive dominated by Neoclassical sculptures of Kościuszko, Havliček and Nicolaus Copernicus.

Mark Twain Park lies between South Indiana Avenue and Lake Shore Drive at 15th Place.

Daniel Webster Park is bounded by 14th Street, South Indiana Avenue and townhouse developments.

McCormick Place also houses the Arie Crown Theater,[15] and it is the annual location for the Chicago Auto Show.

[18] William Wallace Kimball's home was the long time headquarters of the United States Soccer Federation.

This development is built on 72 acres (290,000 m2) of former rail yards and air space rights east of Indiana Avenue between Roosevelt Road and 18th Street that include the former location of the Central Station terminal.

Also, a wave of loft conversions in Printer's Row that has spread to major North-South Avenues such as Michigan, Wabash, and Indiana is making them residential streets again in this neighborhood after a century of other uses.

[30] Fodor's has its own definition of the South Loop as the area bounded by Cermak, Michigan Avenue, the Chicago River, and Congress Parkway-Eisenhower Expressway.