USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume I > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
231
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
architectural triumphs of the exposition, the outlines of the noble water approach which culminated in the superb Court of Honor may still be traced, the magnificent stretch of the Manufacturers' building may still be recalled in a great grassy depression in the northern por- tion of the grounds, and, as stated, the general topographical features of the park were largely fixed by the great engineering and landscape workers of the World's Columbian Exposition. The Columbian cara- vels also still float in its waters and the nautical representative of the real American pioneer, the Viking ship, also reposes in the shade of the Field Columbian Museum. It was some time after the close of the Exposition that the great golf links were established that have made Jackson Park one of the most favorite western resorts for lovers of the game, and the improvement of its yacht harbor and the extension of the completed work to the southeast were works of a comparatively recent day. Briefly stated, Jackson Park is provided with every facility for oarsmen, yachtmen or owners of launches. It has two fine golf courses, with shelter, lockers and showers for both men and women; also baseball and football fields, tennis courts, re- fectory, beach bathing, music court, winter skating and tobogganing, and the Field Columbian Museum of Natural History, which is to be removed to Grant Park, near the Art Institute.
A striking feature in the future expansion of the South Park sys- tem is a shore boulevard, or park, six miles in length, connecting Jack- son and Grant parks. The plan includes drives, water ways, picnic grounds along the route, and the most complete facilities for boating and swimming. The legislature has already authorized the commis- sioners to negotiate with the riparian owners, and the project is fairly under way. Grant, or Lake Front Park, extends from Randolph street to Park Row, and embraces 205 acres. The portion south of the Art Institute is a stretch of meadow, only embellished by the Logan equestrian statue, while the section north is devoted to baseball fields.
The South Park commissioners have the honor to be first in the general municipal movement which has made the park system of Chicago a power in the relief of the depression and actual suffering attending the congestion of resident districts. Under the statute of 1903 they promptly expended $1,000,000 in the purchase of fourteen parks located in crowded and often cheerless sections of the city. and
232
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
proceeded to provide both sexes and all ages with facilities for amuse- ment, mental improvement, exercise and sanitary care. The largest of these are Marquette Park, 37I acres extending from Sixty-seventh to Seventy-first streets and between California avenue and the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, eighty acres of which have already been transformed into ball fields and tennis courts, skating ponds and to- boggans; McKinley Park, over seventy-four acres between Thirty- seventh and Thirty-ninth streets on Archer avenue, which is provided with swimming pool, outdoor gymnasiums for men and women, ten- nis courts, ball fields, children's play ground, wading pool and facili- ties for winter sports; Sherman Park, which has all these features, as well as a free assembly hall for various entertainments, club rooms for the use of neighborhood residents, reading rooms and a band stand, under which concerts are given Sunday evenings during the summer months; Ogden Park, over sixty acres in extent between Sixty-fourth and Sixty-seventh streets, Center avenue and Loomis street, at which the means for recreation and improvement are similar to those provided at Sherman Park; and Calumet Park, with an area of more than seventy-three acres extending from Ninety-fifth to 102nd streets along the lake, which is provided with bathing accom- modations, and has also grounds for both summer and winter sports. Improvements are progressing in all of the larger parks and the smaller areas, such as Palmer, on IIIth street; Hamilton, on Seventy- fourth street; Bessemer, on Eighty-ninth street, and Gage Park, on Fifty-fifth street, are covering as many features as their location and size make possible.
This vast extension of the usefulness of the system in the role of public benefactor is well termed the New-Park Idea, by Henry G. Foreman, president of the South Park commissioners, in these sug- gestive words: "Justified by the success which has marked the service in the new South Division parks and squares, the South Park commissioners, now working toward the completion of the expansion epoch begun in 1903, are planning still another increase in recreation area and facilities. The dominant idea of the service in our new parks is to place recreation facilities and educational and moral influences at the very doors of the people. While all the old-park ideas of trees and flowers and water and verdant stretches are retained in the New- Park Idea (and to that extent we believe our new parks compare fav- orably with others anywhere) the novel, year-round service, which
233
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
has drawn special attention to our new parks, is provided by neigh- borhood center features. It is the extensive use of the clubhouse for the people that has created an emphatic demand in other portions of the south division for similar appliances. The extent of the popu- larity of the new park facilities can be realized when one considers that nearly 5,500,000 persons actually used the gymnasia, baths, read- ing rooms, club rooms, assembly halls, refectories, game fields, etc., in these new parks during the last year alone. This figure excludes spectators. It is the record of actual service. The great value of such service is realized when one recalls that all but one of these parks are located in congested districts, where working people reside in homes that provide little more than the necessities to sustain life. Ten parks, for the most part small, neighborhood parks, are equipped with club houses now. The acreage of these parks also will be increased to better meet existing needs. Requests from people, many of them flat dwellers, residing near Washington and Jackson Parks, and also from residents about Mckinley Park, have been received by the commissioners to provide them with neighborhood center buildings and facilities.
Last winter the people residing in the manufacturing districts in the southern portion of Hyde Park, through their represent- atives in the general assembly, secured the passage of an act authorizing the commissioners to issue bonds for locating more of these parks. The citizens of the South Park district, by a vote of about two to one, authorized the commissioners to issue $3,000,000 additional bonds for this purpose. The commissioners now have 111- der consideration three or four sites in the southern portion of Hyde Park for additional parks and an additional site for a new park in the South Town."
The South Park system is now more than one thousand eight hun- dred and eighty-four acres in extent, or nearly sixty per cent of the entire park system. The territorial district covers more than ninety- two square miles and embraces a population of 600,000. While there is a direct connection, by means of the city boulevards between the South, West and Lincoln Park systems, there is no continuous link between the northern and southern systems. This defective break has been under discussion for years. Many plans for the creation of a grand boulevard between Michigan avenue and the Lake Shore
234
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
Drive have been proposed, but so far none has forcibly appealed both to the practical sense and the esthetic sensibilities. The only material progress which has been made is in the passage of legislative acts which will enable the South Park and Lincoln Park commissioners to unite their efforts with those of the municipality in the realization of this much desired improvement.
The West Chicago parks, like those in the other divisions of the city, were systematized and the largest of them founded, under the legislative act of 1869, which provided for a board of commissioners and under whose authority the governor appointed Charles C. P. Holden, Henry Greenebaum, George W. Stanford, Eben F. Runyan, Isaac R. Hitt, Clarke Lipe and David Cole. The new board was authorized to expend $400,000 for the purchase of the present sites of Garfield, Douglas and Humboldt parks, with their connecting bou- levards. The management of the West parks has overcome many embarrassments. The fire of 1871 and the panic of 1873 were draw- backs to progress which were common to all local enterprises, but the misfortunes of maladministration culminating in 1877 and the treas- ury defalcation in 1896 were troubles which especially affected the growth of the park system in this section of the city. The latter blow following so closely the depressions of 1893-4 almost paralyzed im- provements for some time, but within the past decade, and especially within the past five years, the chief pleasure grounds of the West division have shown marked and rapid improvement.
Garfield Park, which was known as Central Park until 1881, is the most western of the system, and comprises over one hundred and eighty-seven acres, bounded east and west by Homan and Hamlin avenues and divided by Madison and Lake streets. 'To the north of Garfield is Humboldt Park and to the south, Douglas, the three being connected by the boulevards planned in 1869. Douglas boulevard connects Garfield and Douglas parks, and Franklin boulevard joins Garfield and Humboldt parks. The largest of the parks is Humboldt, about twenty-eight acres larger than Garfield, and the latter is only about six acres larger than Douglas; so that the western, northwest- ern and southwestern sections of the city have an almost equal rep- resentation in park area.
Within quite recent years the improvements in Garfield Park have made it one of the most attractive in the city. The portion north of
235
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
Lake street is sparsely wooded, with winding roadways and shallow brooks, and contains not only the fly-casting pond but the new con- servatory and propagating houses, one of the finest botanical estab- lishments in the country. The middle section of Garfield Park, be- tween Lake and Madison streets, embraces the boating lakes, and a beautiful boat landing pavilion, refectory and club hall, all under one roof. Further south and across a wide driveway is a magnificent water court (a miniature of the World's Fair Court of Honor ), which is divided by Madison street and extends, on the southern side of that thoroughfare, between bright and fragrant beds of flowers and to- ward a fine music pavilion. Beyond the rolling hills and the band- stand, as it is popularly called, is a large expanse stretching toward the southern limits of the park on Colorado avenue. This was a cir- cular park devoted for years to horse racing and bicycle riding, base- ball and footfall, but it is now being transformed into tennis courts, golf links and finished baseball diamonds, or being restored to park purposes of an ornamental nature. A fine toboggan slide is also in- stalled in this portion of the park.
Nearly two miles to the southeast is Douglas Park, stretching from Twelfth street on the north to Nineteenth street on the south, and from California avenue on the east to Albany avenue on the west. The natural gateway at the western, or Douglas boulevard entrance, consists of flowering shrubbery and trees, with a fountain basin placed at the intersection of the park and the boulevard, and the general effect is extremely artistic and pleasing. The special inner attractions of the park are a fine boat landing and pavilion, a natatorium, a con- servatory and a great winter garden. The latter is installed in a great building of iron and glass, 178 feet long by 62 feet wide, the central pavilion of which displays palms, ferns and medicinal plants. In addition the park provides the usual facilities for baseball, boating and tennis, and such winter sports as skating and tobogganing.
Marshall boulevard extends from Douglas Park to the Illinois and Michigan canal, over two miles, and connects the West and the South Park systems at Western avenue. Completed at a compara- tively recent date, it is the last link in the chain of boulevards thirty miles in length which binds the South, West and North systems, leaving as the only section of the circuit incomplete one mile of the down-town district from Jackson boulevard to Ohio street.
236
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
Humboldt Park, which is the largest in the west division, contains nearly two hundred and six acres, and, proportionately an unusually large water surface. The park is bounded by North avenue on the north, California and Sacramento avenues on the east, Division and Augusta streets on the south, and Kedzie avenue on the west. More than two hundred and forty thousand dollars was expended in the purchase of land within these limits, and of the liberal sums expended on improvements a large portion has been expended in excavating the lake basins and in the beautifying of the grounds immediately adja- cent. The naming of the park was in deference to the distinctive Germanic element which prevails in the northwestern section of the city. Both Germans and Scandinavians largely predominate, and the characteristic pastimes of the latter element are given a larger measure at Humboldt Park than any other in the city. Not only are the principal skating tournaments held upon its lakes, but the best fa- cilities for skeeing are provided. Grounds are furnished for the other prevailing outdoor sports of both summer and winter, and there is a wading pool and shelter building especially for children. One of its most striking summer features is a magnificent rose garden, with an elevated promenade around it and a garden hall connecting it with beautiful grounds beyond. At the eastern entrance of the park is an ornamental gateway, with garden lanterns, fountains and seats. Humboldt boulevard, nearly three miles in length, connects the park (and therefore the West Side system) with Lincoln park on the north.
The West Chicago parks also include Union, Jefferson, Vernon and Wicker-small tracts, which were originally in the outskirts of the city-as well as Logan square and Palmer place (on Humboldt boulevard), and numbers of smaller pleasure grounds of a still later creation. Three small parks have been founded and are being adapt- ed to their purposes or furnishing recreation and relief to the crowded neighborhoods of the west side. On the eight-acre tract bounded by Chicago avenue, Cornell, Noble and Chase streets, and located in one of the most densely populated districts of the northwest side, men, women and children have been provided with such luxuries as gymnasiums, shower baths, swimming pools, and eating, library and reading rooms. Smaller parks and playgrounds are being improved
237
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
in the Ghetto district of the west side, and in a congested section of the southwest side between Twentieth and Twenty-first streets.
A general idea of the vastness of the work and the problem en- trusted to the West Chicago Park commissioners may be gained from the statement that the area of their district is 35.5 square miles ; popu- lation, about 770,000; total area of parks, 626.38 acres, and of parks and boulevards (twenty-five miles) combined, 1,036 acres. In addi- tion to the parks and squares under the management of the constituted boards there are about forty small areas which are cared for either by the city or by private parties. In this list is Douglas Monument, at the foot of Thirty-fifth street near the lake shore, the noble shaft and statue erected to the memory of the Little Giant of Illinois hav- ing an especially close significance to the earlier residents of Chi- cago. These scattered and independent tracts comprise more than one hundred and seventeen acres, bring the grand total of the park area of Chicago up to 3.191 acres. There are also several boards of park commissioners, whose jurisdiction is outside that of the three division boards. The North Shore Park commissioners are allotted a district bounded on the north by the city limits. They have no parks in their territory, but supervise about four miles of boulevards, including Sheridan road, Ashland avenue and Pratt boulevard. The Special Park Commission comprises members of the common council, promi- nent citizens and prominent architects and landscape engineers, and is charged with the development of the outer-belt system of parks and boulevards for the Chicago of the future. It is only possible to speak in general terms of the great enterprise, which is to so increase the lung capacity of the metropolis, the preliminary plans of a work of such magnitude being liable to even radical change. Briefly, the com- mission propose (as already stated) to make Grant Park, on the lake front, which is to be the grand æsthetic and educational center of the municipality, the topographic axis of half a gigantic wheel of parks and boulevards. It is proposed to make a grand boulevard of parks. picnic grounds and waterways from Jackson to Grant parks and transform the Hyde Park reefs into beautiful island reefs. With Grant Park and the Lake Shore Drive connected by that long-deferred boulevard, Lincoln Park would be a grand link in the belt which would be laid along Lake Michigan to the Evanston drainage canal. The wide strip along this waterway running toward the west would
238
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
be beautified with resident parks and lagoons. The improvements in the northern system would, however, be chiefly made in a strip of country, three-eights of a mile wide, running along the north line of Cook county, from Lake Michigan for a distance of sixteen miles into what is known as the Skokie, a flat tract of country which is now usually covered with water in the spring or during especially rainy seasons. This section of the belt is designed to terminate at Bowmanville and cover an area of 8,320 acres. A beautiful country drive is planned from the Skokie to the Desplaines river; thence south through Wheeling, Desplaines, Franklin Park, River Forest and Riverside to the Drainage canal, the twenty-five miles of parked boulevards embracing an area of 8,800 acres and some of the most restful and picturesque valley scenery in the middle west. A strip is projected along Salt creek, running west from Riverside to Western Springs and Willow Springs, on the Drainage canal, and the high- lands and forest in the vicinity of the latter, the north half mile of the Palos hills and the intervening Sag valley are suggested as the nat- ural basis of a great forest reserve and camping ground. It is, in fact, one of the principal aims of the special commission to prevent the destruction of the considerable tracts of native timber which still stand in the valley of the Desplaines. The central feature of the southern section of the belt will be Lake Calumet, whose shores are proposed to be a continuous chain of parks and boulevards, with a great tract of 1,500 acres south of the lake. The connection between the western and southern systems is to be the proposed South Chicago drainage canal, running from the main channel to Blue Island, and the Calumet river, the stream tributary to the lake. The acquisition and improvement of property bordering Lake Michigan from the Calumet district to Jackson park are to complete this great under- taking, in the full realization of which many years will probably pass.
239
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
Chicago Drainage and Ship Canal
It is a high tribute to the practical wisdom and the paternal fore thought of the projectors of the canal which is the nucleus of the Sanitary District of Chicago, that they should first have perfected it as an agency for maintaining the purity of the water supply of two million and a half of people, before bringing prominently to the fore ground its logical claim as the most important link' in the internal system of water-ways destined to be a vast and necessary outlet for the congested riches of the Mississippi valley and the west. For years the city has been pouring its money into a magnificent system of water works, with its supply drawn from the seemingly incorruptible bosom of Lake Michigan, but an unprecedented increase of population brought with it also a threatened, and ofttimes an actual, contamina- tion. It was necessary to turn the sewage of the city away from the lake into some other catch basin, especially that which had been dis- charged from the northern and southern districts of the city and was the main source of the evil. The central districts had largely used the river for this purpose, with the result that no large city in the world had created such a standing nuisance and menace to public health. The comparatively level surface of the country gave the river, which was also clogged with the filth of a large portion of the city, a cur- rent which was often imperceptible. But this natural feature, which appeared the greatest obstacle to be overcome, proved eventually the saviour of the situation; for by the cutting of the slight divide be- tween the headwaters of the Chicago river and those of the Desplaines at Lockport, nearly thirty miles away, as well as the blasting of a magnificent waterway through the intervening limestone, the waters of Lake Michigan were made to flush out the foul stream; those waters were drawn into the Illinois and thence into the Mississippi. and, through the alchemy of nature, so purified as to be healthful and sparkling when used by the large cities down the valley of the Mis- sissippi.
The legislative bill creating the Sanitary District of Chicago was signed by the governor of Illinois May 29, 1889, and the first board
240
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
of trustees was elected on December 12th of that year. As the pro- posed work was of tremendous proportions and quite new to most of the members, there were natural disagreements which resulted in many changes in the personnel of the board before earth was actually broken at Robey street, Chicago, on September 3, 1892. The term of the first trustees was six years, but after 1895 it was reduced to five. Under the act of 1889 the original sanitary district contained 185 square miles, but by the act of July 14, 1903, it was enlarged by the annexation of the North Shore district (78.6 square miles ) and the Calumet district (94.48 square miles), which makes the total area 257.08 square miles. The North Shore district includes the towns of Evanston, Niles, New Trier and portions of the townships of Northfield and Main, as well as Norwood Park. The Calumet dis- trict includes the township of Calumet and portions of Worth, Bremen and Thornton, and is drained into the main canal by a reversal of the flow of the Calumet river. The North Shore district is to be drained into the Chicago river direct from Lake Michigan through a series of artificial channels, the pumping plants being erected near the lake. Important as they are to the suburban districts north and south of Chicago, these features are of course subordinate to the main canal, or backbone of the district, which extends from Robey street, Chicago, to Lockport, a distance of 28.05 miles ; and a justification for adopting the title "Chicago Drainage and Ship Canal" is found in the fact that the population of the city proper is fully ninety-five per cent of that in- cluded in the entire sanitary district.
The main channel of the canal was completed and the waters of Lake Michigan turned into it on the 2nd of January, 1900. Thirteen days thereafter the magnificent channel was filled to the controlling works at Lockport; on January 17th the great dam at that point was lowered and the waters of Lake Michigan started on their long jour- ney toward the Gulf of Mexico. This consummation marked the formal opening of the Sanitary District canal. From Robey street to Summit, nearly eight miles, the channel is II0 feet wide at the bot- tom and 198 feet at the water line, with a minimum depth of 22 feet of water; from Summit to Willow Springs, 5.3 miles, 202 feet at the bottom and 290 at the top, with the same depth; and from Willow Springs to Lockport, nearly fifteen miles (known as the rock section), the bottom of the channel is 160 feet and the top 162 feet. In the
241
CHICAGO AND COOK COUNTY
construction of this great channel were removed 20,693,000 cubic yards of glacial drift and 12,265,000 cubic yards of solid rock, the material being piled along the entire course in a massive ridge of hills. The retaining walls and brick masonry contained 457-777 cubic yards of stone, laid in cement mortar. Thirteen bridges were built over the canal proper. Outside of the main channel from Robey street to Lockport vast works were pushed to completion as parts of the general system. The controlling works at Lockport, with their pow- erful machinery, comprise seven sluice gates and one trap dam, the latter having an opening of 160 feet. The dam has been well de- scribed as "two great metal leaves hinged together and working be- tween masonry bulkheads." Beyond the controlling works to Joliet the Desplaines river was also dredged, widened and otherwise im- proved to meet the new conditions, the entire work so vast in extent and complicated in details being directed primarily to the object of giving the waters a free sweep through natural and artificial channels. A magnificent pumping station was also erected at Thirty-ninth street, Chicago, to increase the current inland. An idea of the main cost incurred in the completion of the main channel from Lake Michigan to Lockport, thirty-four miles, may be gained from the last report of the board of trustees of the Sanitary District, the items of which partially tell this romance in engineering being as follows: Main channel construction (Robey street to Lockport ), $18,600, 195 ; bridge construction, main channel, $1.978,536.38; controlling works. Lock- port, $331,253.65; Chicago river, dredging, docking, etc., $2.190,- 903.70; bridge construction, Chicago river, $2,970,707.76; Thirty- ninth street pumping station, $229.702.00; river diversion construc- tion, $1,000,186.38. These items amount to $27.071.782.87 of the total ($29,135.436.54) expended upon the actual construction and improvement of the main drainage canal from the commencement of work on Shovel Day (September 3, 1892) up to January 1. 1908. Including water power development ($4.058.056), interest on bonds, land taxes, maintenance of bridges, and administration and operating expenses ($5,369,021), the expenditures up to that date were $58,- 747,233.23.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.