by Sabrina Martin

Created on: March 17, 2009   Last Updated: March 18, 2009

The "Emerald Isle" is home of the St. Patrick's Day holiday, and where most of the day's traditions originated. Yet, the day the river turns green, it's not the streets of Ireland that are crowded with enthusiastic onlookers, but rather the streets of America's "windy City."

It's true. The tradition of dyeing a river green, originated in none other than Chicago Illinois. The funny thing is, it was a spur of the moment idea that came from an incident completely unrelated to St. Patrick's Day.

The business manager of the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local Union # 110, Stephen M. Bailey, was the master mind behind it all. A quite amusing set of circumstances gave birth to the idea. As Dan Lydon tells it in his account titled, "The Man Who Dyed the River Green," on greenchicagoriver.com, It began on a day when plumbers were checking for waste discharge in the Chicago River.

The plumbers were adding a fluorescent dye to the waste system at the edge of the river, which enabled them to see where the illegal discharge was coming from. One of the men working on the project entered Mr. Bailey's office covered in the fluorescent green dye. When Bailey discovered what it was, and what the plumbers were doing with it, he smiled and enthusiastically presented his idea: dye the entire river green for St. Patrick's Day.

The idea wasn't met with as much enthusiasm by the other's he spoke to. Many didn't think it was possible, or simply thought it was an outrageous idea. Nevertheless, they tried it.

The Journeymen Plumbers Union zoomed around the river, releasing one hundred pounds of fluoresein dye into the water. The river stayed green for a week. That was St. Patrick's Day 1962. A year later, they reduced the amount of dye to fifty pounds. The river remained green for about three days. After the first two years, they settled on using only twenty five pounds, which allowed the river to keep its green color for one day.

A few years later, environmentalists protested dyeing the river because the dye was believed to be harmful to the fish and other creatures living in the river. In 1966 a vegetable dye was decided upon, and is still used today for dyeing the river. Instead of twenty five pounds, it requires about forty pounds of the dye to keep the river green for only a few hours.

Although it is argued by residents of Savannah Georgia that it was their Mayor, Tom Wooley, that originated the tradition of dyeing a river green in 1961, there is no such solid evidence backing the claim.

What we do know is that Chicago was the first city to successfully dye a river green, and they continue to carry out this remarkable tradition every year.

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