Grant Park: The Evolution of Chicago's Front Yard

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Dennis H. Cremin GRANT PARK − THE EVOLUTION OF CHICAGO’S FRONT YARD GRANT PARK The Evolution Of Chicago’s Front Yard Cremin L ong considered the showplace and high cultural center of Chicago, Grant Park has been the site of tragedy and tension, as well as success and joy. In addition to serving as the staging grounds for Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession through the city, the park has been the setting for civil rights protests and the 1968 Democratic National Convention demonstrations. The faithful attended the open-air mass of Pope John Paul II in Grant Park, and fans gathered there to cheer for the Chicago Bulls after their championship wins. Millions of visitors have made their way into Millennium Park for concerts, lunch, or just to stroll. The expansive park overlooking the beautiful waters of Lake Michigan has played an active part in Chicago and U.S. history. In 1836, only three years after Chicago was founded, Chicagoans set aside the narrow shoreline as public ground and declared it “forever open, clear, and free.” Chicago historian and author Dennis H. Cremin reveals that despite such intent, the transformation of Grant Park into the spectacular park it is more than 175 years later was a gradual process, at first fraught with a lack of funding and organization , and later challenged by erosion, railroads, automobiles, and continued legal battles over the original intent of the park and conceptions of progress. While Grant Park’s landscape and uses have changed throughout its complex history , the public ground continues to serve “as a display case for the city and a calling card to visitors.” Amply illustrated with maps and images from throughout Chicago’s history, Grant Park shows readers how Chicago’s “front yard” developed into one of the finest urban parks in the country today. Southern Illinois University Press Dennis H. Cremin is a coauthor of Chicago: A Pictorial Celebration and a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Chicago. He has extensive experience as a public historian, having served as the director of research and public programs for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Gaylord Building Historic Site and as a state scholar for the Illinois Humanities Council. He provided guided tours from Chicago’s elevated trains for the city of Chicago ’s Office of Cultural Affairs and worked as a summer archivist for the Grant Park Music Festival. He is a professor of history at Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. “Grant Park is Chicago’s storied front yard. If there is one place to see the rich panoply of Chicago history unfold, I can think of no better spot than Chicago’s lakefront park. Dennis Cremin has crafted a rich chronicle of Grant Park that highlights its central place in the history of Chicago . Chapter by chapter, Cremin takes his reader from the park’s origins in the shadow of Fort Dearborn to the creation of Millennium Park.” —Ann Keating, Toenniges Professor of History, North Central College “What happens when a historian visits a park and then starts the thought process rolling? What happened here? How has the landscape changed over time? How does the city appear in this showcase parcel of land? Does the real city differ from its ‘front yard’ presentation? Professor Cremin’s answers to such questions, in text and pictures, will provide an enriched vista the next time one walks through Grant Park.” —Gerald A. Danzer, emeritus professor of history, University of Illinois at Chicago “Dennis H. Cremin provides the first thorough account of the often controversial development of Grant Park, including its many physical and cultural features, the numerous important events staged in the park, and the people involved in its evolution.” —Irving Cutler, author of Chicago: Metropolis of the Mid-Continent southern illinois university press www.siupress.com $34.95 usd isbn 0-8093-3250-7 isbn 978-0-8093-3250-2 Jacket illustration: Buckingham Fountain, Chicago, Illinois. Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Printed in the United States of America Cremin cover mech.indd 1 4/3/13 9:49 AM ...