Although 1904 was the founding year of the Chamber, it operated under a Charter dated 1897 and is a direct lineal descendent of the Chicago Board of Trade which was founded in 1848. Originally the Board of Trade was a booster organization created to attract business to Chicago including conventions. Later it became a grain exchange. The year 1904 is used as the official founding date, for at this time, groups were amalgamated to form the present Chamber of Commerce.

1904: Ninety-three merchants and manufacturers - leaders all - on October 9, 1904, set the foundations and modest superstructure for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce; its birth-name being the Chicago Commercial Association. A year later, these captains of federation found themselves eight times more numerous, and Chicago enjoying the best business in its history. Theodore Roosevelt was then President of the United States. Carter H. Harrison, Jr. was mayor of Chicago. Russia and Japan were at war. And Chicago had about 2,000,000 residents.

The Chamber has played, and continues to play, a major role in the development of the business and civic life of the community. Its record of accomplishments is notable, reflecting with credit the efforts over many years of a continuous succession of articulate business and civic leaders, united by a common bond - an earnest desire to make theirs a better community in which to live, work, and engage in business.

Among the Chamber's many accomplishments over the years, the following are indicative of its many-pronged interests:

The famous Chicago "Way to Ship" package car service was inaugurated by the Chamber in its very first year. Under this plan, Chicago shippers enjoyed a daily fast freight service to 1,500 communities without a transfer, and to 60,000 communities with but one transfer. No other city gave shippers comparable service - a fact of enormous advantage to Chicago firms.

In 1908 the Chamber helped Northwestern University found its School of Commerce, and raised a guarantee fund to assure the school adequate finances over the formative years.

The Chamber successfully advocated the consolidation of Chicago's two telephone companies in 1909.

1910: In 1910, the Chamber persuaded the City Council not to reduce the legal building height from 260 to 200 feet. Also in 1910, the Chamber started to promote efficiency in social welfare and related fields by analyzing the objectives of the agencies concerned, by appraising the soundness of their accounting and financial procedures, by disclosing duplicating, overlapping or fraudulent operations, and by assisting in strengthening the quality of their work. The Chamber's annual list of endorsed local civic and welfare organizations enabled its members and the community to react intelligently to continuous demands for funds totaling several hundred million dollars annually.

On October 9, 1911, the Chamber organized and operated the National Citizen's League for the Promotion of a Sound Banking System. This brought about passage of the Federal Reserve Banking Act in 1911. By the end of 1911, the Chamber's net membership reached 4,000.

The Chamber first instituted Fire Prevention Day, sponsored by the Fire Marshals Association of North America, on October 9, 1911, in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire. (In 1920, President Woodrow Wilson issued the first National Fire Prevention Day proclamation. Five years later, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed the first National Fire Prevention Week, which was October 4 - 10, 1925.)

1912 was a big year for the Chamber. Chicago's downstate relations as influenced by the Association of Commerce created a Committee on Relations with Illinois Commercial Organizations. Said Edward E. Gore, chairman of the Chamber's Ways and Means Committee, "If Chicago is to have justice at the hands of the legislature of Illinois, it can only be obtained through an industrious and earnest attempt to demonstrate to the other communities of the state, that Chicago has no desire to dominate state affairs; but desires only to dominate her own affairs, with the end in view of dealing intelligently, capably and satisfactorily with the great problems that confront a city of two-and-one-half million people, of many nationalities and of diverse ideas of the application of the government."

U.S. President Taft called for a unified national and international voice of business and the Chamber contributed to the creation and organization of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, of which Chamber President Kimbark said in 1912, "In the movement culminating in this organization, the Chicago Association of Commerce had an influential part, and it has since been our privilege to assist this organization in its efforts to gain the undivided support of the progressive business organizations of the country."

The influence of the Progressive Movement in politics could be seen in the events of 1914. The Chamber submitted to the U.S. Chamber a proposal for a general daylight working day. Also, the Chamber’s Civic-Industrial Committee was exceptionally active in raising Chicago's industry-consciousness, and in guiding public sentiment in progressive thinking and action. Projects included purifying Lake Michigan; elevating railway tracks; street railway extensions; census of Chicago manufacturers; extension of switch tracks; establishing the American College of Surgeons; exploring local industrial districts; education work at high schools and before miscellaneous bodies' taking 600 boys to the Corn Products plant at Argo; intensive industrial survey of Chicago, etc.