Landscape Information
A monumental civic space fronting Lake Michigan, this 319-acre park is sited on public land founded in 1835 and infill created from the detritus of the 1871 Great Fire. Known from 1847 as Lake Park, it was renamed in honor of Ulysses S. Grant in 1901. The park’s formal, parterre landscape was designed by Edward H. Bennett around the same time.
Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago visualized the park as a French Renaissance landscape featuring civic institutions, a vision hampered by longstanding regulations that protect the park as open space. This situation was resolved when the southern part of the park expanded through numerous infill projects, most notably under Alfred Caldwell utilizing Works Progress Administration funds in the 1930s
Grant Park is home to the Field Museum of Natural History, Art Institute of Chicago, and Shedd Aquarium, with Adler Planetarium nearby in Burnham Park. In 1968 the park served as the site of numerous demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention. Several protests resulted in violent confrontations between the police and participants.
Today, the space between the park’s civic structures is known as Museum Campus, which was transformed from an expanse of pavement to broad sweeps of lawn with paths and trees in 1995. In 2004, the 25-acre Millennium Park opened, replacing old rail lines and parking further north. The park also features the General John Alexander Logan Monument (1897), designed by architect Stanford White, and sculptors Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor; and the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain (1927). The Beaux-Arts water feature was given by Kate Buckingham in honor of her brother and was designed by architects Bennett, Parsons and Frost. Grant Park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
