Lincoln Park is a large park covering 1,208 acres (489 hectares) along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is named after U.S. president Abraham Lincoln and is the city's largest public park. The park spans seven miles (11 kilometers) from Grand Avenue (500 N) in the south to near Ardmore Avenue (5800 N) in the north, just north of the DuSable Lake Shore Drive terminus at Hollywood Avenue. Two museums and a zoo are located in the oldest part of the park between North Avenue (1600 N) and Diversey Parkway (2800 N) in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Further north, the park includes open spaces, beaches, recreational areas, nature reserves, and harbors. To the south, there is a narrower strip of beaches east of Lake Shore Drive, near downtown. With 20 million visitors each year, Lincoln Park is the second-most-visited city park in the United States, after Manhattan's Central Park.

The park offers many recreational facilities, including baseball and softball fields, basketball courts, beach volleyball courts, cricket pitches, football and soccer fields, a golf course, lacrosse fields, rugby pitches, tennis courts, volleyball courts, field houses, a target archery field, a skate park, and a driving range. The park also includes several harbors with boating facilities, public beaches for swimming, and nature reserves. It has landscaped gardens, public art, bird refuges, a zoo, the Lincoln Park Conservatory, the Chicago History Museum, the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, the Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, and a theater on the lake where outdoor performances are held during the summer.

History

In 1860, Lake Park (previously called Cemetery Park), the earlier version of today's park, was created by the city on land just north of the city's burial ground. Five years later, on June 12, 1865, the park was renamed to honor President Abraham Lincoln, who had been recently assassinated.

In 1994, the area was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Part of the oldest section of today's Lincoln Park near North Avenue began as the City Cemetery in 1843. This area was divided into sections for different groups: a Potter's Field, a Catholic cemetery, a Jewish cemetery, and the general City Cemetery. These cemeteries were the only ones in the Chicago area until 1859. In 1852, David Kennison, who was born in 1736, died and was buried in the City Cemetery. Another person buried there was Chicago Mayor James Curtiss, whose body was lost when the cemetery was turned into part of the park.

During the late 1850s, there were discussions about closing or abandoning the cemetery because of health concerns. In fall 1858, Dr. John H. Rauch MD suggested that the burial grounds were a health risk and could be replaced with trees that would be useful and beautiful for the city. This idea was not followed during the Civil War but was considered again after the war ended.

By 1864, the city council decided to add the 120-acre (0.49 square kilometers) cemetery lands north of North Avenue to the park by moving the graves. The cemetery sections south of North Avenue were also relocated, but that land was later used for homes. About 35,000 people were buried in the cemetery sections of the park. The plan required moving these graves to new cemeteries farther from the city and the lake. Today, the Couch mausoleum is still visible as a reminder of the park's history as a cemetery, located behind the Chicago History Museum. Ira Couch, who is buried in the tomb, was one of Chicago's earliest innkeepers, opening the Tremont House in 1835. A nearby plaque says that "the remains of six Couch family members and one family friend are in the tomb." Many remains were hard to identify because of the destruction caused by the Chicago Fire, which damaged wooden burial markers. As recently as 1998, construction in the park uncovered more bodies from the 19th-century burial ground.

A large group of graves moved from today's Lincoln Park were those of about 4,000 Confederate prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas. Many prisoners died between 1862 and 1865 due to poor health from battles or from disease and hardship in the prison. Although the camp was near downtown Chicago, near the stockyards, the remains were originally buried in the area now known as Lincoln Park. Today, their graves are at Oak Woods Cemetery in southern Chicago. A one-acre (4,000 square meters) mass grave and a monument built in 1895 by Southerners and Chicago friends honor these people. Author George Levy believes that remains of many Confederate prisoners may still be found beneath what are now baseball fields, the former site of the potter's field.

From the 1860s through the 1950s, the park expanded south and then north along seven miles (11 kilometers) of Chicago's Lakefront. (See reference notes 1, 2 and 3). The creation of public parkland along Chicago's Lakefront was a major goal of the 1909 Burnham Plan for the city's development. From 1912 until 1991, the park included the Lincoln Park Gun Club.

Another part of the park's history involved the Young Lords, who led sit-ins and took over institutions in Lincoln Park neighborhood to protest the displacement of Latinos caused by Mayor Richard J. Daley's urban renewal policies.

The park was also the site of violent events during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. These events happened near the convention center, Grant Park, Old Town, and the park.

— Abbie Hoffman, from the Chicago 7 trial

Zoo, conservatory and museums

Lincoln Park is famous for Lincoln Park Zoo, a free zoo that is open all year. The zoo is home to lions, penguins, gorillas, reptiles, monkeys, and other animals, totaling nearly 1,250. The Pritzker Family Children's Zoo includes North American wildlife and an indoor play area. Farm-in-the-Zoo shows a working farm with cows, goats, ponies, pigs, and chickens. At certain times, visitors can feed and interact with the animals there. In 2010, the zoo changed the South Pond into Nature Boardwalk, a habitat with prairie and wetland areas.

The Lincoln Park Conservatory displays plants from many climates around the world all year. The conservatory was built in stages from 1890 to 1895. It includes a vestibule, four display halls, and fifteen areas for growing plants. The vestibule and Palm House opened in 1892 and have large palms and rubber trees, including a 15-meter (about 49 feet) fiddle-leaf rubber tree planted in 1891. The Palm House also has a sculpture called Garden Figure by Frederick Hibbard. The Fern Room opened in 1895 and has many ferns and forest floor plants. The Tropical Room, originally called the stove house, opened in 1895 and had tropical plants on bark-covered walls. It is now called the Orchid Room and has about 25,000 natural orchid species. The Display House shows seasonal flower exhibits. A guided tour program, run by the Chicago Park District and Lincoln Park Conservancy, offers free tours of the conservatory and gardens from 1–4 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.

The Alfred Caldwell Lily Pool, located on Fullerton Parkway between Stockton and Cannon Drives, is an example of Prairie School landscape design. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark on February 17, 2006. Originally built in 1889 to grow tropical water lilies, the pool was redesigned in the 1930s by landscape architect Alfred Caldwell in the Prairie School style. From 1998 to 2002, the Lincoln Park Conservancy and Chicago Park District restored the pool, which earned its historic status and was renamed after Alfred Caldwell. The Lily Pool is open seasonally from mid-April to mid-November, from 7:30 a.m. until dusk or 7:30 p.m. A guided tour program, run by the Chicago Park District and Lincoln Park Conservancy, offers free tours from 1–4 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays during operating hours.

The Chicago Academy of Sciences, first established in 1857, opened its most recent facility, the Nature Museum, in 1999. Its previous building, the Matthew Laflin Memorial Building, was the Park District's first museum in the parks. The museum includes exhibits about the ecological history of Illinois, a live butterfly house with over 200 species of exotic butterflies, and a green home demonstration. It also offers educational programs for adults and children.

The Chicago History Museum, located at Clark Street and North Avenue, focuses on Chicago's human history. Among its notable items are Abraham Lincoln’s deathbed and furniture from the room where he died in the Petersen House in Washington, D.C., as well as clothing worn by Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd Lincoln on the night of his assassination. The museum also holds Chicago’s most important collection of materials related to local history, from the Great Chicago Fire to the Young Lords in Lincoln Park. In addition to exhibits, the museum houses a large research library with books, manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and photos.

Recreational areas

Lincoln Park stretches from north to south through five Chicago community areas: Edgewater, Uptown, Lake View, Lincoln Park, and Near North. Along its seven-mile (11 km) length, the park includes many spaces for recreational activities. These spaces include playgrounds; basketball, beach volleyball, tennis, and volleyball courts; boating facilities; beaches; swimming areas; field and beach houses; running and bike paths; playing fields and pitches; archery, baseball, cricket, football, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, and softball fields; a golf course; a driving range; a skate park; and areas for horseback riding. Near Montrose Point is Cricket Hill, one of the few sledding hills in Chicago parks.

There are seven public beaches along the park’s 7-mile shoreline for swimming, sunbathing, and beach volleyball. These beaches are guarded during the summer months. From north to south, the beaches are Thorndale, Hollywood, and Foster in Edgewater; Montrose in Uptown; North Avenue in Lincoln Park; and Oak Street and Ohio in Near North. North Avenue Beach, the first public beach in Chicago, opened in Lincoln Park in 1895. The Lincoln Park Passerelle, a footbridge, connected to the beach in 1940 over the newly built Lake Shore Drive.

The Waveland Avenue Golf Course (now Sydney R. Marovitz Golf Course) in the Uptown and Lakeview neighborhoods provides a lakeside setting for the game. (41°57′09″N 87°38′29″W / 41.95250°N 87.64139°W / 41.95250; -87.64139 (Waveland Avenue Golf Course)) Known for its narrow fairways, it has nine tees on a par-36 course. Further south, inland of Lakeshore Drive, is a driving range and a miniature golf course.

Three harbors in the park provide marina and docking facilities for boaters: Montrose in Uptown, Belmont Harbor in Lakeview, and Diversey Harbor in Lakeview and Lincoln Park. Montrose Harbor has 630 dock facilities and is home to the Chicago Corinthian Yacht Club. Belmont Harbor has 730 moorings, a fuel dock, and a ship store. The Chicago Yacht Club has a Belmont station, and the Belmont Yacht Club is located here. Diversey Harbor has 714 moorings, and the Diversey Yacht Club provides a fueling dock. There is also a public launch at Diversey, and the park has rowing, sculling, and crewing channels.

The Chicago Lakefront Trail (LFT) is an 18-mile multi-use path along Lake Michigan’s coast. It is popular with cyclists and joggers and is designed to encourage bicycle commuting. From north to south, the trail runs through Lincoln Park, Grant Park, Burnham Park, and Jackson Park.

• People in Lincoln Park in 1973
• A playground in Lincoln Park in 1973
• Children playing in Lincoln Park during a 2011 snowstorm
• Montrose Harbor and other harbors in the park provide marina and docking facilities
• First tee at Waveland Golf Course
• Oak Street Beach

Wildlife

The North Pond Nature Sanctuary (41°55′42″N 87°38′15″W / 41.92833°N 87.63750°W / 41.92833; -87.63750 (North Pond)), located between Fullerton, Diversey, Stockton, and Cannon, is a ten-acre pond that has become an important wildlife area. Historically, the site was a dune, then a dumping ground, and an ornamental pond. It was changed into a natural area with a shallow water area between 1999 and 2000. This improvement helped restore native Midwestern plants and improve water quality. The land around the pond was restored to include prairie, savanna, and woodland plants. Only high-quality native species were used, such as little bluestem, sky-blue aster, nodding wild onion, side-oats grama, butterfly weed, purple prairie clover, rough blazing star, wild quinine, prairie phlox, coneflowers, false dragonhead, northern prairie dropseed, showy goldenrod, rattlesnake master, shooting star, and wild bergamot. The North Pond Nature Sanctuary is notable as the place where Mayor Richard M. Daley and the US Fish and Wildlife Service signed an Urban Conservation Treaty for Migratory Birds in April 2004. This agreement helped the city get money from the government to restore habitat for birds that travel along the lakefront.

Restoration with native plants has brought many types of wildlife to this urban pond, including birds, turtles, frogs, and even a few beavers. Visitors often see great blue herons, black-crowned night herons, green herons, mallards, wood ducks, song sparrows, and woodpeckers at the North Pond Nature Sanctuary.

• Green Heron
• Beaver
• North Pond Beaver Lodge
• Snapping Turtle
• Wood Ducks

Further north in the park, in the Lake View neighborhood (3600 N), there is the Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary (41°56′56″N 87°38′26″W / 41.94889°N 87.64056°W / 41.94889; -87.64056 (Bill Jarvis Migratory Bird Sanctuary); formerly, Lincoln Park Addison Migratory Bird Sanctuary). The sanctuary was first designed and built with limited public access in the 1920s, under the guidance of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. Its spring is filled with city water to create a natural lake marsh environment, along with surrounding forest and meadow areas. Most of its 7-acre (2.8 ha) area is completely fenced to protect the habitat from people. Instead, a nature trail and a viewing platform are located around the perimeter. In the 1940s, the site lost funding and was locked. In 1968, the entire area was nearly destroyed for a golf course, but neighbors, including Bill Jarvis, successfully campaigned to save and restore it. Today, the sanctuary supports more than 150 bird species, including six types of herons, such as the black-crowned night heron; wood ducks; woodcock; hawks; yellow-billed cuckoos; hummingbirds; thrushes; vireos; 34 species of warblers; and 18 native species of sparrows. Small mammals, such as rabbits, opossums, raccoons, and occasionally foxes and coyotes, also live there.

In the Uptown neighborhood (4400 N; 41°57′48″N 87°38′00″W / 41.96333°N 87.63333°W / 41.96333; -87.63333 (Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary)), there is the 15-acre (6.1 ha) Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary (including "The Magic Hedge"). During the Cold War, Montrose Point, which extends into Lake Michigan, was used by the United States Army as a Nike missile base. The Army hid their missile launchers and barracks behind honeysuckle hedges. When the Army left in the 1970s, bird watchers noticed that the honeysuckle attracted birds. They successfully asked the park district to create a new preserve. After replanting, the site now supports woodland, tall prairie, and lake dune habitats that attract tens of thousands of migratory birds, including more than 300 species each year. The Uptown Natural Area, opened in 2022, includes nature trails through six acres of native prairie and savanna.

Public art

Lincoln Park is known for its many statues, and it is called "Chicago's outdoor Statuary Hall" by WBEZ. A famous statue in the park is Abraham Lincoln: The Man, created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Saint-Gaudens also made Abraham Lincoln: The Head of State in Grant Park. Copies of the Standing Lincoln statue in Lincoln Park can be found at Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, Illinois, and in Parliament Square, London. The statue is located at the corner of Dearborn Street and North Avenue. It was completely restored in 1989 by the Lincoln Park Conservancy's Adopt-A-Monument Program. At the same time, 8,200 square feet of formal gardens were added in front of the monument.

The only other person honored with statues in both Grant Park and Lincoln Park is Alexander Hamilton. His statue was sculpted by John Angel. Just as there is a large statue of Abraham Lincoln in Grant Park, there is a large memorial to Ulysses S. Grant in Lincoln Park, overlooking Cannon Drive. This sculpture was made in 1891 by Louis Rebisso.

A statue of Hans Christian Andersen, a Danish storyteller, was created by Johannes Gelert in 1896. It is located on Stockton Drive near Webster Avenue. The Eugene Field Memorial (1922), designed by Edward McCartan, honors a Chicago Daily News columnist and poet who wrote "Little Boy Blue" and "Winken, Blinken, and Nod." A statue of William Shakespeare by William Ordway Partridge (1894) is also in Lincoln Park. This seated statue includes a lap for children to sit on. A bust of Sir Georg Solti, a conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was in the Lincoln Park Conservatory's formal garden until it was moved to Grant Park in 2006. Statues honoring Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, two German poets, are also in Lincoln Park. The larger Goethe statue is near Diversey Parkway and Stockton Drive. The smaller Schiller statue is near the western entrance to the zoo. A Signal of Peace by Cyrus Edwin Dallin (1890) is displayed in the park.

A 40-foot (12-meter) totem pole depicting Kwanusila the Thunderbird stands at Addison Street. A statue of John Peter Altgeld (1915), an Illinois governor who pardoned men involved in the Haymarket Affair bombing, is located just south of Diversey. This statue was created by Gutzon Borglum and unveiled on September 6, 1915 (Labor Day).

• The Alarm
• Statue of John Peter Altgeld
• Hans Christian Andersen
• Greene Vardiman Black
• Dream Lady, Eugene Field Memorial
• Statue of Benjamin Franklin
• Goethe Monument
• Ulysses S. Grant Monument (Photochrom of the ca. 1901)
• Statue of Alexander Hamilton
• Statue of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle
• Abraham Lincoln – Standing Lincoln after Lincoln Park Conservancy restoration
• Statue of Friedrich Schiller in the Lincoln Park Conservatory formal garden
• Statue of William Shakespeare in the Lincoln Park Conservatory's Grandmother's Garden
• A Signal of Peace
• Statue of Richard J. Oglesby
• Jose Rizal

In media

The 1980 movie My Bodyguard includes many scenes that were filmed in Lincoln Park.

Phil Ochs' song "William Butler Yeats Visits Lincoln Park and Escapes Unscathed," which was on his 1969 album Rehearsals for Retirement, describes his experience walking through the park during the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests.