Grant Park is a large urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois. Located within the city's central business district, the park's features include Millennium Park, Buckingham Fountain, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum Campus.
Originally known as Lake Park, and dating from the city's founding, it was renamed in 1901 to honor US President Ulysses S. Grant. The park's area has been expanded several times through land reclamation, and was the focus of several disputes in the late 19th century and early 20th century over open space use. It is bordered on the north by Randolph Street, on the south by Roosevelt Road and McFetridge Drive, on the west by Michigan Avenue and on the east by Lake Michigan. The park contains performance venues, gardens, art work, sporting, and harbor facilities. It hosts public gatherings and several large annual events.
Grant Park is popularly referred to as "Chicago's front yard". It is governed by the Chicago Park District.
History
The original plans for the town of Chicago left the area east of Michigan Avenue unsubdivided and vacant, and purchasers of Michigan Avenue lots were promised that it would remain unoccupied. When the former Fort Dearborn Reserve became part of the townsite in 1839, the plan of the area east of Michigan Avenue south of Randolph was marked "Public ground. Forever to remain vacant of buildings."
The city officially designated the land as a park on April 29, 1844, naming it Lake Park. When the Illinois Central Railroad was built into Chicago in 1852, it was permitted to lay track along the lakefront on a causeway built offshore from the park. The resulting lagoon became stagnant, and was largely filled in 1871 with debris from the Great Chicago Fire, increasing the parkland. In 1896, the city began extending the park into the lake with landfill, beyond the rail lines. On October 9, 1901, the park was renamed Grant Park in honor of American Civil War commanding General and United States President Ulysses S. Grant. At the 1868 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Grant had been nominated for his first presidential term.
The legal restrictions prohibiting any buildings in the park were ignored in the 19th century, as various civic buildings were sited there. At various times, a post office, exposition center, armory, and even an early home field of the baseball club now known as the Chicago Cubs were built in the park. A 1904 plan prepared by the Olmsted Brothers recommended locating the Field Museum as the park's centerpiece, an idea integrated into Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett's 1909 Plan of Chicago. Chicago businessman Aaron Montgomery Ward ultimately fought four court battles, opposed by nearly every civic leader, to keep the park free of buildings. The one exception to which Ward consented was for the Art Institute of Chicago, constructed in 1892.
In the early 20th century, Grant Park was expanded with further landfill—much of it from the excavations of the Chicago Tunnel Company—and developed with a very formal landscape design by Edward Bennett. More landfill in the 1910s and 1920s provided sites for the Adler Planetarium, Field Museum of Natural History, and Shedd Aquarium, which were linked together as the Museum Campus in 1998. In 2004, a section of northern Grant Park, previously occupied by Illinois Central railyards and parking lots, was covered and redeveloped as Millennium Park.
Events
The park has been the site of many large civic events. It served as the staging ground for the city's funeral procession for President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. In 1911, the park hosted the major Chicago International Aviation Meet. In 1913 the AAU held the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. In 1959, to celebrate the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and a related International Trade Fair, Queen Elizabeth II, disembarked here from the Royal Yacht Britannia, giving the park's "Queen's Landing" its name. The park was the scene of clashes between Chicago Police and demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Pope John Paul II celebrated an outdoor mass to a large crowd here in 1979. Championship celebrations were staged here for the Chicago Bulls during the 1990s, and the Chicago Blackhawks after winning the Stanley Cup in 2013. The park was the location for President Barack Obama's Election Day victory speech on the night of November 4, 2008. In 2015, Grant Park hosted the first outdoor National Football League (NFL) draft and a related festival. The Chicago Cubs held their rally for their World Series Championship win on November 4, 2016 with an estimated 5 million people attending the parade and event.