Jackson Park (Chicago)

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Daniel Chester French's The Republic in Jackson Park

Jackson Park is a 500 acre (2 km²) park on Chicago's South Side officially located at 6401 S. Stony Island Avenue in the Woodlawn community area. It extends into the South Shore and Hyde Park community areas, bordering Lake Michigan and several South Side neighborhoods. Named for President Andrew Jackson, it is one of two Chicago Park District parks with the name Jackson, the other being Mahalia Jackson Park in the community area of Auburn Gresham on the far southwest side of Chicago. The park hosts the Chicago Landmark 63rd Street Bathing Pavilion.

1 Site of a world's fair
2 Intervening Years
3 The park today
4 Gallery
5 External links
6 References

[edit] Site of a world's fair

The City of Chicago legislated the South Park Commissioners into existence in 1869. Land for South Park and its sister Washington Park was condemned for park use in 1870. Much of the present park area was originally underwater. The real estate was a "rough, tangled stretch of bog and dune" owned by James Marks, William P. Kerr, and other prominent Chicago real estate speculators. James Marks filed a lawsuit challenging the valuation, James Marks vs. South Park Commissioners, reported in the Chicago Tribune in October 1870 after initial judgement, during appeal. Other land owners challenged the valuation as well. Landowner William P. Kerr made final appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1886. All litigation was resolved in 1888.

South Park was later renamed Jackson Park after President Andrew Jackson. The park's original landscaping was designed and created by Frederick Law Olmsted, the architect of New York City's Central Park. He originally submitted a plan for all of Chicago's southern parks (Jackson Park, Washington Park and the Midway Plaisance) in 1870, but Jackson park remained largely unimproved due to the Chicago Fire of 1871 and its effects on the city's finances. Olmstead created a new design for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The landscaped park became the foundation of the spectacular, but temporary, Beaux-Arts White City.

[edit] Intervening Years

During World War II, jingoistic vandals severely damaged the Japanese Garden. The Chicago Park District waited for decades before considering repairing it. Eventually, the city of Osaka donated money for the refurbishment.

During the Cold War the park housed a Nike-Hercules nuclear-tipped missile defense system; it was dismantled in 1971.

[edit] The park today

Japanese Garden

Every structure from the World's Columbian Exposition was long ago demolished or moved elsewhere, except the old Palace of Fine Arts, which is now the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Osaka Garden, a Japanese strolling garden reconstructed on its original site on the Wooded Island. (By itself the Wooded Island is considered one of "150 great places in Illinois" by the American Institute of Architects.^[1]) The only other significant building that survived the fair is the Norway pavilion, a building now preserved at a museum called "Little Norway" in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. The full scale replica of Columbus' flagship the Santa María rotted in the Jackson Park lagoon, and is now an island located at 41°47′9.5″N, 87°35′2.8″W.

During the summer season for the Chicago Park District (Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend) the Jackson Park 63rd Street Beach House and the adjacent Lake Michigan beachfront is a destination for beachgoers. The Beach House competes with the South Shore Cultural Center and Promontory Point as South Side beachfront special use facilities in the Park District.

Besides the Wooded Isle and Osaka Garden, sites worth visiting include Olmsted's lagoons, the gilded Daniel Chester French statue Republic (a replica of a much larger statue built for the Columbian Exposition), and the Jackson Park Golf Course.

Jackson Park is connected by the Midway Plaisance to Washington Park (see Encyclopedia of Chicago Map). In accordance with a canal that Olmsted wanted built between the two parks, a long excavation was made on the Midway, but water has never been allowed in. It is connected to Grant Park by Burnham Park.

Jackson Park is home to a well-studied population of feral Monk parakeets, descendants of pet birds that escaped in the 1960s.[1]

Jackson Park Heights is a common neighborhood name for an area abutting Jackson Park. It received its name from a low ridge that once existed south of the present-day park.

[edit] Gallery

Jackson Park Beachhouse Fountain	Jackson Park Beachhouse Plaque	Jackson Park Beachhouse	Jackson Park Beachhouse and Beach
Jackson Park Beachhouse Fountain	Jackson Park Beachhouse (second floor)	Jackson Park Beachhouse (second floor)