McKinley Park

McKinley Park, which was dedicated in 1902, is one of the first "neighborhood parks" in the country. Named in honor of President William McKinley, who had been assassinated one year earlier, McKinley Park proved to be an instant success. The park's popularity not only encouraged the city's South Park Commission to create a network of neighborhood parks, but it also inspired similar efforts nationwide. President Theodore Roosevelt referred to this Chicago innovation as "one of the most notablé civic achievements in any American city." , , Prior to the turn of the century, [two or three words are unreadable, the last word is possibly "designed"] to serve residents from large regions of the city. The notion of a new kind of park emerged in Chicago in the late 1890s, after hundreds of thousands of European immigrants settled in what became overcrowded tenement districts which were often distant from the existing parks. Social reformers such as Jane Addams responded by creating playlots and ballfields in these areas. Inspired by such efforts, the superintendent of the South Park Commission, J. Frank Foster, proposed a series of small, but beautifully landscaped, recreational areas in some of the city's most densely populated neighborhoods. , , When the Illinois General Assembly, in 1899, authorized the city's three park commissions to acquire additional property for neighborhood parks, the South Park Commission quickly moved ahead with plans to purchase a 34-acre site northwest of the Union Stockyards. Three years later, McKinley Park opened to the public with facilities seldom seen in a public park, such as a swimming lagoon, ballfields, playgrounds, an open-air gymnasium, and a community center. More than 100,000 people swam in the park's lagoon pool during its first year, and the park's showers gave many people their only access to running water. , , Pleased with the park's success, the commission hired the team that created the fairgrounds for the World's Columbian Exposition (Olmsted Brothers and D.H. Burnham and Co.) to design a system of 14 neighborhood parks, which includes Bessemer Park, Davis Square, Hamilton Park, Palmer Park, and Sherman Park. , , The following year, McKinley Park was doubled in size and additional improvements were made to serve the area's growing population. Another year later, the McKinley Monument by Charles J. Mulligan (a stone cutter until his discovery by Chicago's most famous sculptor, Lorado Taft) was installed; a modern swimming pool was built (allowing the lagoon to be used primarily as a landscape feature); and a fieldhouse was constructed.