Service Notes:

Hours of Operation: Service at all times
Length of Route: 4.9 miles
Number of Stations: 9 stations
Car Types Assigned: 5000-series (see Car Assignment sheet for latest car assignments)

Brief Description:

Two subway lines included in the Initial System of Subways plan, the State Street Subway and Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway, were designed to accommodate crosstown routes through downtown. The State Street Subway was meant to accommodate the North-South through-routes.

Federal dollars made available by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs during the Great Depression made the construction of the subways possible, allowing Chicago to carry out a civic improvement it'd long planned for but been able to get off the ground. In 1937, the city applied to the federal Works Progress Administration for a grant and loan for subway construction and both were approved.

On Saturday, December 17, 1938, Chicago broke ground for the new subways at the corner of Chicago and State. Chicago built its subways using the deep bore method. Each subway line has two tubes, one per track in each direction, each dug with its own boring shield twenty-five feet in diameter. To make the journey under the river, a 200-foot long steel and concrete tube was constructed at a South Chicago shipyard, floated up to downtown, lowered into a trench in the riverbed, and connected to the subway tunnels inside cofferdams built along the banks of the river in the fall of 1939. The only sections constructed by the "cut-and-cover" method were the station mezzanines, crossovers between the tunnels, and short distances just before the subway portals as the tubes ascend to ground level to connect to the elevated.

After five years of construction, Chicago's first subway was ready for operation. The city staged a celebration for the opening of the State Street Subway on October 16, 1943. Celebrations were held all throughout the subway. Between 10:25 and 10:45am, ten special trains arrived at State and Madison to unload their passengers. At 10:47am, Mayor Kelly cut a ceremonial red, white, and blue ribbon strung across the northbound track, officially giving the new subway to the city. The State Street Subway officially opened for revenue service after midnight on October 17, 1943.

Important Dates:

• December 17, 1938 - Ground is broken on the State Street Subway at Chicago and State.
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• October 17, 1943 - State Street Subway opens for revenue service.
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• July 31, 1949 - The CTA institutes its massive North-South service revision. Service is streamlined into the following routes: Howard-Englewood, Howard-Jackson Park, Ravenswood (Kimball-Loop), and Evanston (Linden-Howard during non-rush hours, Linden-Loop during rush). A/B skip stop service is instituted on the Howard, Englewood, Jackson Park and Ravenswood routes.
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• April 13, 1992 - A tunnel under the Chicago River collapses, flooding Loop basements, service tunnels and the CTA subway system. Service is disrupted in the State Street subway for 18 days.
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• February 21, 1993 - A new connection opens between the Dan Ryan line and the State Street Subway. Dan Ryan trains are routed through to Howard Street forming the Red Line. Englewood and Jackson Park elevated lines, previously linked with Howard Street, become linked with Lake Street line via the Loop elevated, forming the Green Line. New destination roller signs on trains and route maps conform to the new color coding system.
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• July 21, 1996 - The section of the State Street Subway's continuous platform that served the Washington station is split into two separate stops as part of the stop's renovation. The north end of Washington was the "Lake-Washington" stop for "L" transfers and the south end was the "Washington-Madison" stop for Blue Line transfers. Once the work was completed, the station became unified again.
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• November 18, 1997 - The dual stopping pattern at Washington/State is re-instituted effective at 10am. The north end is again considered a separate station, alternately referred to as "Lake-Washington" or sometimes simply as "Lake". On maps, Lake provides the free transfer to the elevated at State/Lake and Washington provides a free transfer to the Washington/Dearborn subway station through a mezzanine walkway and a platform-level tunnel.

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