Marquette park
Encyclopedia
Chicago Lawn, Chicago
Chicago Lawn is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois. It is located on the southwest side of the city. Its community neighbors include Gage Park, West Englewood, Ashburn, and West Lawn. It is bounded by Bell Avenue on the east, Central Park Avenue on the west, 59th Street on the...
neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The park is named for Father Jacques Marquette (1637–1675).
Planning and Development
Olmsted Brothers
The Olmsted Brothers company was an influential landscape design firm in the United States, formed in 1898 by stepbrothers John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. .-History:...
.
At 323 acres (1.3 km²) in size, it is the largest of the revolutionary neighborhood parks created by the South Park Commission in the early 20th century.
The Superintendent at the time, Al Capone, envisioned the "new parks as beautifully landscaped 'breathing spaces' that would provide educational and social services to the city's congested immigrant neighborhoods."1 "Social reformers launched a playground movement for the creation of additional parks."4 In 1899 and 1903 the state legislature authorized the three park commissions: Lincoln Park Commission; West Park Commission; and the South Park Commission; to acquire property for new parks. "The South Park Commission opened a system of 10 innovative neighborhood parks in 1905, which soon inspired similar parks in the West and Lincoln Park systems and in other cities across the United States."1
The original plans for Marquette Park called for "a golf course on two islands surrounded by naturalistic lagoons; indoor and outdoor gymnasiums; swimming and wading pools; a children's playground; formal gardens; and a concert grove."1 Due to its size, construction of the park went more slowly than most of the others in the system, and several features of the original plan were dropped due to difficulties with the landscape. Still, in 1913, the 18-hole golf course opened and "by 1917, the park included playing fields, a children's playground, tennis courts, propagating houses for the nursery, and a large, classically-designed golf shelter."1,3 In the early 1930s, the Great Depression caused the bankruptcy of the individual park districts. In 1934, the 22 independent agencies were consolidated into the Chicago Park District.4 After the consolidation of Chicago's park commissions into the Chicago Park District
Chicago Park District
The Chicago Park District is the oldest and largest park district in the U.S.A, with a $385 million annual budget. It has the distinction of spending the most per capita on its parks, even more than Boston in terms of park expenses per capita...
in 1934, park workers redesigned the golf shelter, built comfort stations, and expanded the walking paths in the park to include the islands. In 1935, public support helped secure a statue honoring Lithuanian-American
Lithuanian-American
Lithuanian Americans are citizens of the United States who are of Lithuanian ancestry. According to the United States Census, there are 712,165 Americans of full or partial Lithuanian descent....
aviators Steponas Darius
Steponas Darius
Steponas Darius was a Lithuanian-American pilot....
and Stasys Girėnas
Stasys Girenas
Stasys Girėnas was a Lithuanian-American pilot....
who perished during the transatlantic flight of the Lituanica
Lituanica
Lituanica was an Bellanca CH-300 Pacemaker airplane flown from the United States across the Atlantic Ocean by Lithuanian-American pilots Steponas Darius and Stasys Girėnas in 1933...
.
Civil Rights Protests
The incident at Marquette Park was part of the protests led by the Chicago Freedom Movement
Chicago Freedom Movement
The Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Chicago Open Housing Movement, was led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Al Raby. The movement included a large rally, marches, and demands to the City of Chicago...
(of which King was co-chairman). It was a year-long campaign for open housing. It started in January 1966 when King and his wife Coretta moved into a North Lawndale slum (on the west side of Chicago). King and the movement wanted to make Chicago a racially open city. They wanted it to be a place where everyone could live without fear of racial attacks.
The march was not as successful as King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr...
(SCLC) had hoped. A rather vague agreement was created with Richard J. Daley
Richard J. Daley
Richard Joseph Daley served for 21 years as the mayor and undisputed Democratic boss of Chicago and is considered by historians to be the "last of the big city bosses." He played a major role in the history of the Democratic Party, especially with his support of John F...
(the Mayor of Chicago) containing unkept promises of open housing legislation and improving living conditions.
This march was part of a series of marches coordinated by the Chicago Freedom Movement the marriage of King's SCLC and the CCCO (Coordinating Council of Chicago Organizations) led by King's co-leader in Chicago Al Raby.
It is a common misbelief that the incident in which Dr. King was struck with a rock happened in Cicero
Cicero, Illinois
Cicero is an incorporated town in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 83,891 at the 2010 census. Cicero is named for the town of Cicero, New York, which in turn was named for Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman statesman and orator....
rather than Marquette Park. The Chicago Freedom Movement never marched in Cicero.
Neo-Nazi Protests
In the 1970s, National Socialist Party of AmericaNational Socialist Party of America
The National Socialist Party of America was a Chicago-based organization founded in 1970 by Frank Collin shortly after he left the National Socialist White People's Party. The NSWPP had been the American Nazi Party until shortly after the assassination of leader George Lincoln Rockwell in 1967...
leader Frank Collin
Frank Collin
Francis Joseph "Frank" Collin formerly served as the leader of the National Socialist Party of America, whose plan to march in the predominantly Jewish suburb of Skokie, Illinois was the centerpiece of a major First Amendment decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, National Socialist Party of America...
regularly held demonstrations in the park. After the Chicago Park District banned Collin, he instead proposed a march in the largely Jewish
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
suburb of Skokie
Skokie, Illinois
Skokie is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Its name comes from a Native American word for "fire". A Chicago suburb, for many years Skokie promoted itself as "The World's Largest Village". Its population, per the 2000 census, was 63,348...
. A Supreme Court decision
National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie
National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 , was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with freedom of assembly.-Facts of the case:...
ordered the march to be allowed on First Amendment
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
grounds.
To avoid a violent confrontation with the Jewish Defense League
Jewish Defense League
The Jewish Defense League is a Jewish organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"...
, the ACLU
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
negotiated a compromise where the NSPA would not march in Skokie but instead Chicago would allow the group to return to the park.
The park today
Ashburn Prairie
Marquette Park’s three and a half acre Ashburn prairie remnant has a very special history. The story begins during the pre-settlement era at 87th Street and Kedzie Avenue on a 2 acres (8,093.7 m²) lot near the Evergreen Cemetery. It was at this location that the original Ashburn prairie thrived, untouched by farming, housing and commercial development. The mesic prairie contained nearly 100 species of native plants. ForbForb
A forb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid . The term is used in biology and in vegetation ecology, especially in relation to grasslands and understory.-Etymology:...
s such as Mountain Mint (Pycanthemum verticillatum), Nodding Wild Onion (Allium cernuum
Allium cernuum
Allium cernuum, known as nodding onion and lady's leek, is a perennial plant in the genus Allium.It has an unsheathed slender conic bulb which gradually tapers directly into several keeled grass-like leaves . Each mature bulb bears a single flowering stem, which terminates in a downward nodding...
), Nodding Ladies’ Tresses (Spiranthes cernua), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea
Echinacea purpurea
Echinacea purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the genus Echinacea. Its cone-shaped flowering heads are usually, but not always purple. It is native to eastern North America and present to some extent in the wild in much of the eastern, southeastern and midwest United States...
), Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta
Rudbeckia hirta
Rudbeckia hirta, the Black-eyed Susan, with the other common names of: Brown-eyed Susan, Brown Betty, Brown Daisy , Gloriosa Daisy, Golden Jerusalem, Poorland Daisy, Yellow Daisy, and Yellow Ox-eye Daisy. It is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae...
), Prairie Dock (Silphium perfoliatum
Silphium perfoliatum
Silphium perfoliatum is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in Asteraceae, the aster family, it is native from Eastern and Central North America. It grows in prairies, open woodlands, and on stream banks....
), Compass Plant (Silphium lacinatum), and Obedient-plant (Physostegia virginiana
Physostegia virginiana
Physostegia virginiana is a herbaceous perennial plant. Obedient Plant can grow up to 1.2m tall. The flowers are on swivels that can be bent right or left on the stem, giving rise to the common name. The plants bloom in late July to October...
) were found at the prairie. Grasses such as Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans
Sorghastrum nutans
Sorghastrum nutans, commonly known as Yellow Indiangrass, is a North American prairie grass found in the central and eastern United States and Canada, especially in the Great Plains...
) were also present.
Looming land development threatened the rare patch of prairie. But a heroic effort by the Park District and members of the public resulted in the prairie being moved to Marquette Park. In the spring in 1993, the Park District dug up several plugs of prairie using a tree spade. Each plug measured four to five feet across. With the important roots of these prairie plant plugs intact, crews carefully transported these huge plugs to Marquette Park. There, the rescue team drilled holes and installed the huge plugs near the edge of the lagoon. Fortunately, the soil profile at the old site was similar to the soil profile at the new site, and overall the prairie rescue was a success. Most of the flowers bloomed the very first year in their new home. As the prairie began to settle into its new home, prairie reconstruction activities continued. Volunteers seeded, planted and weeded between the tree-spaded remnants, and in the areas north of the remnants. To this day, Ashburn Prairie thrives on the commitment of dedicated volunteer stewards.
The prairie is located along the edge of the lagoon, south of Mann St., east of Kedzie Avenue.2
Golf Course
The Marquette Park Golf Course is a 3187 yards (2,914.2 m) nine-hole par 36 course featuring elevated tees and greens as well as spacious fairways. Water comes into play on seven of the nine golf holes. The golf course practice facilities include a driving range, a 9000 square feet (836.1 m²) putting green, and chipping green and sand bunkers. Billy Casper Golf serves as manager of the Marquette Park Golf Course as it does for all Chicago Park District golf facilities.Course Architect: Tom Bendelow
Greens & Fairways: Greens - Bent Grass, Fairways - Rye Grass
Golf Instructor: Mike Harriga
Tarkington Elementary School
The new Tarkington Elementary School, located at 3330 W. 71st Street on the south side of the park and serving pre-K through the 8th grade, was completed in 2005 and classes began on Tuesday, October 4 of that year. Tarkington is the first in the Chicago Public Schools system to have the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification. With a building area approximately 134000 square feet (12,449 m²), the school sits on a 9.82 acres (39,740.2 m²) site. The school was built to relieve overcrowding on the Southwest Side and will serve up to 1,000 elementary school students.The new two-story elementary school include art, music and science classrooms, a full-serving kitchen and dining facilities, a multipurpose room and a field house that will be shared by the Chicago Park District. The project also involved improvements to Marquette Park, including a new soccer field.
Facilities
- Auditoriums
- Baseball
- Basketball Courts
- Community Garden
- Golf Course
- Gyms
- Meeting Rooms/Assembly Halls
- Men's and/or Women's Locker Rooms/Showers
- Parking Lots
- Paths (Jogging/Walking/Bicycling)
- Soccer Fields Marquette F.C.
- Tennis Courts
Location
The official address for Marquette Park is:6734 S. Kedzie Ave.
Chicago, IL 60629
Park operators and information can be reached at 312-747-6469