Summer 2010

Chicago Park District History

WPA Arts Program: The Chicago Park District received substantial funds through President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration for park improvements and programs. This photograph depicts children from LaFollette Park making a water float that was launched in the Burnham Harbor for the Carnival of the Lakes event, 1936.

Celebrating 75 Years!

This year, the Chicago Park District reaches an important milestone- its 75th anniversary. A variety of events, projects and educational materials will offer you opportunities to learn more about the history of the city's magnificent park system. Many of these resources celebrate important benchmarks of the past 75 years, while others explore earlier chapters in Chicago's park history. Visit here throughout the year for updated information about our anniversary.

Chicago Park District Seal: In 1934, two instructors from the School of the Art Institute, Park Phipps and Lloyd Cowan, won a contest to design the official seal for the newly-created Chicago Park District. They received $150 prize for their "Garden in the City" seal.

Garden in the City: Brief History of the Chicago Park District

When the Chicago Park District was formed in 1934, it adopted the motto "Horto in Urbe," a Latin phrase meaning "Garden in the City" (see seal above). This maxim provided a clever play on "Urbs en Horto" or "City in a Garden," the official City motto which dates back to 1837. Almost a century later, the Chicago Park District came into existence during the darkest days of the Great Depression.

By the 1930s, more than 200 parks already existed throughout the city, and many were historically significant. Renowned designers including Frederick Law Olmsted, the Olmsted Brothers, Daniel H. Burnham, William Le Baron Jenney, and Jens Jensen had contributed to the development of Chicago's parks. Some of the existing properties dated back to the three original park districts (South, West and Lincoln Park Commissions) which had formed to foster a unified park and boulevard system in 1869. Others, such as a large group of neighborhood parks established in the early 1900s, were nationally-influential as vehicles of social reform. These sites provided an array of services and programs to densely populated tenement districts, an idea that was soon incorporated into parks throughout America.

By 1934, there were 22 independent park commissions chartered by the State of Illinois that were all operating simultaneously throughout the city. Suffering the effects of the economic crisis of the day, the individual park districts were financially insolvent. To reduce duplication of services, streamline operations, and gain access to federal funding through President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, voters approved the Park Consolidation Act on April 10, 1934, formally establishing the Chicago Park District. Mayor Edward J. Kelly (previously President of the South Park Commission) appointed the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners, and its members took office on May 1, 1934. A series of lawsuits, delayed the merger until October 11, 1934, when the new centralized agency began its operations.

The Chicago Park District inherited more than 130 parks with a total of 83 field houses. Many of the parks were more than 60 years old, and in dire need of improvements and repairs. Federal and state funding in excess of $100 million allowed the Park District to undertake ambitious construction and renovation projects between 1935 and 1941. Relief efforts through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Project Works Administration (PWA) also fostered innovative programs and activities in Chicago's parks. These included arts and crafts classes to produce handmade toys that could be checked out from toy-lending libraries, and illuminated water floats that were launched in Burnham Harbor for a six-day event called Carnival of the Lakes .

Since its formation 75 years ago, 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, and the park police merged with the Chicago Police Department.

The election of Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1989 marked a new era of greening, expanding, restoring, and improving Chicago's parks. Numerous innovative programs have been developed since that time including campus parks formed in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools, greening initiatives such as nature preserves and wildlife gardens in the parks, and updated recreational facilities and events such as skate parks, and outdoor movies in the parks. Today the Chicago Park District is the steward of more than 7,300 acres of open space, totaling more than 555 parks, 33 beaches, 10 wildlife gardens and nature preserves, and 2 world-class conservatories. The host of thousands of special events, sports and recreational programs each year, the Chicago Park District is the leading provider of green space and recreation in America.

Additional resources about the history of Chicago's parks: