Chicago Park District Records: Photographs

This note was written by historian Julia Bachrach.

In the 1830s, Chicago's emerging government adopted the motto "Urbs in horto," a Latin phrase meaning "City in a Garden." The slogan proved to be prophetic. For nearly two centuries, Chicago's citizens have rallied for the creation and protection of parkland, and many of the city's parks have served as testing grounds for important ideas and social movements. Many of the parks were originally created or shaped by nationally acclaimed architects, planners, landscape designers or artists, such as Daniel H. Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted Sr., Jens Jensen, Alfred Caldwell and Lorado Taft.

The earliest parks were created in Chicago between the 1830s and 1860s. Grant Park began as a strip of green space along Lake Michigan known as Lake Park. On the city’s north side, a physician, Dr. John Rauch, led a successful campaign to set aside a 60-acre section of a public cemetery as parkland, marking the beginnings of Lincoln Park. As Chicagoans increasingly recognized the need for parks throughout the city, a movement emerged which led to the formation of one of the nation’s first comprehensive park and boulevard systems. This system was spurred by the adoption of three separate acts of state legislation establishing the Lincoln, South, and West Chicago Park Commissions in 1869. Although the three park commissions operated independently, the overall goal was to create a unified ribbon of green that would encircle Chicago.

The three agencies each commissioned their own designers to create pleasure grounds and interlinking boulevards that could be enjoyed by the whole city. The Lincoln Park Commissioners hired Swain Nelson and Olof Benson to expand their existing park and to construct the old Lake Shore Drive. The West Chicago Park Commissioners hired William Le Baron Jenney to lay out Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas Parks. The South Park Commission selected the nationally renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. to design its park system, now known as Washington Park, Jackson Park and the Midway Plaisance. Olmsted also helped transform Jackson Park into the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and return the site to parkland after the fair closed.

At the turn of the century, each of the three commissions made efforts to expand its park system to respond to the city’s rapidly growing population. The South Park Commissioners worked with D.H. Burnham & Co. architects and Olmsted Brothers landscape architects to pioneer new neighborhood parks that offered recreational opportunities as well as social and educational programs. These parks, which included the nation’s first fieldhouses, were described by President Theodore Roosevelt as “the most notable civic achievement in any American city.” During this period, Prairie style visionary Jens Jensen served as the General Superintendent and Chief Landscape Architect for the entire West Park System. Jensen designed numerous improvements to the existing parks and created plans for small west side parks such as Eckhart and Dvorak Parks. Similarly, the Lincoln Park Commissioners hired Prairie School architect Dwight H. Perkins and landscape gardener Ossian Cole Simonds to create beautifully-designed improvements to Lincoln Park and new small parks such as Hamlin and Seward parks. At this time, the city was expanding by territory as well as population. The most remarkable increases occurred in 1889, when areas outside of Chicago were annexed to the city. An 1895 state act allowed voters within newly annexed areas to create their own park districts. By 1930, 19 new park districts had been formed resulting in a total of 22 independent agencies operating simultaneously in the city. The smaller park districts often wanted to build fieldhouses, and many of them hired local architect Clarence Hatzfeld to design their buildings.

By 1934, all of Chicago’s 22 park districts were hindered by the Great Depression. To reduce duplication of services, streamline operations and gain access to funding through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, voters approved the Park Consolidation Act of 1934, which established the Chicago Park District (CPD). In order to create jobs, the newly established CPD hired architects, engineers and landscape architects to produce record plans and drawings that provide a detailed understanding of the park buildings and landscapes as they appeared in the 1930s.

Since its formation, the Chicago Park District has continued its tradition of innovative programs and ideas and beautifully designed landscapes and facilities. In the late 1940s, a Ten Year Plan led to dozens of new parks, including a progressive school-park concept. In 1959, the system expanded again when the City of Chicago transferred more than 250 parks, playlots, natatoriums and beaches to the Chicago Park District. As of 2014, the Chicago Park District was the steward of over 8,000 acres of open space, totaling more than 570 parks, 31 beaches, 50 nature areas and 2 world-class conservatories. CPD hosts thousands of special events and cultural, nature, sports and recreational programs. It remains the nation’s leading provider of green space and recreation.