Chicago River Swim Returns After Nearly a Century

Pack your goggles, Chicago—for the first time since the Roaring Twenties, you can legally take a dip in the Chicago River. On Sunday, September 21, 500 swimmers will plunge into its green-tinged waters for the Chicago River Swim , an open-water race nearly a century in the making.

The last sanctioned swim here happened in 1926, before decades of sewage and industrial pollution made the idea of a mid-loop backstroke… inadvisable. Since then, the river’s transformation, powered by the Clean Water Act, restoration projects and relentless local advocacy, has turned it into a surprisingly inviting urban waterway. It’s now home to nearly 70 species of fish, beavers, turtles and, for one morning this fall, a small army of humans in swim caps.

The race will start at the Dearborn Street Bri