| Bridgeport is a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, USA. It is one of 77 official community areas of Chicago. Historically and still today, a large section of the neighborhood has served as an enclave of the Irish-American community in Chicago, as large numbers of immigrants from Ireland settled in this working class neighborhood beginning in the 1830s. Many of the same Irish immigrants who helped build the Erie Canal later came to Chicago to work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal. Because of inadequate funding for the project, the State of Illinois began issuing "Land Scrip" to the workers rather than paying them with money. A large number of those Irish-Americans who received the scrip used the scrip to purchase canal-owned land to settle at the northern end of the canal, at its junction with the south branch of the Chicago River which is near the original Bridgeport village Reference |  |