Chicago "L" 2014, the "L" had an average of 752,734 passenger boardings each weekday, 486,267 each Saturday, and 359,777 each Sunday. In a 2005 poll, "Chicago Tribune" readers voted it one of the "seven wonders of Chicago", behind the lakefront and Wrigley Field, but ahead of Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), the Water Tower, the University of Chicago, and the Museum of Science and Industry. The first "L", the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, began revenue service on June 6, 1892, when a steam locomotive pulling four wooden coaches, carrying more than a couple of dozen people, departed the
Chicago Water Tower Pumping Station, it drew clean water from water cribs in Lake Michigan. The tower gained prominence after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. While some incorrectly believe that the tower was the only building to survive the fire, a few other buildings in the burned district survived along with the tower. The tower was the only public building in the burned zone to survive, and is one of just a few of the surviving structures still standing. In the years since the fire, the tower has become a symbol of old Chicago and of the city's recovery from the fire.