This Lincoln Park memorial commemorates Greene Vardiman Black (1836-1915). Known as the father of modern dentistry, he made innumerable contributions to the field, such as writing the first textbook on human dental anatomy, inventing countless dental instruments, and pioneering the use of nitrous oxide as an anesthetic for dental procedures. He also served as dean of Northwestern University’s dental school for nearly two decades. Shortly after Black’s death, the National Dental Association decided to erect a memorial in his honor in Chicago and commissioned sculptor Frederick C. Hibbard to design it. Dedicated in 1918, the memorial consists of a bronze sculpture of Black on a limestone chair-like base. The sculpture depicts him sitting upright with a book propped up on his right thigh. In attendance at the unveiling ceremony were more than 1,500 members of the National Dental Association.
This Lincoln Park fountain honors educator, social reformer, and women’s rights advocate, Frances Willard (1839-1898). A native of New York, she served as a schoolteacher and college administrator before becoming president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), a position she held from 1879 until her death in 1898. While Willard was still president of the WCTU, the organization commissioned English sculptor George Wade to design a decorative drinking fountain in honor of its long-time president. Paid for by small donations from children around the world, the fountain would be displayed near the WCTU’s booth at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. When completed, Wade’s fountain featured a bronze sculpture of a little girl in a dress. Standing barefoot with outstretched arms, she holds a bowl from which water flows into a granite basin below. Two years after the exhibition, the WCTU relocated the fountain to the Woman’s Temple at the intersection of La Salle and Monroe Streets in Chicago. In 1921, the fountain moved to the city’s Lincoln Park near Lake Shore Drive and North Avenue. In the 1930s, the Chicago Park District placed the fountain in storage in preparation for construction on Lake Shore Drive. There it remained until 1940, when the Chicago Park District reinstalled it in Lincoln Park, just south of the West LaSalle Drive underpass. In the late 1950s, the fountain’s bronze sculpture was stolen. It was never recovered. For more than half a century, the fountain’s granite basin stood alone in Lincoln Park until 2012 when a bronze reproduction of the original sculpture was installed.
This statue (also known as “Standing Lincoln”) commemorates the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). As president from 1861 to 1865, he shepherded the nation through the Civil War, while also issuing the Emancipation Proclamation and helping to pass the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution through Congress. On the evening of April 14, 1865, less than a week after Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Lincoln was shot by southern sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. He died early the next morning. Sixteen years after Lincoln’s assassination, Chicago lumber merchant Eli Bates passed away. In his will, he left $40,000 for the erection of a statue in honor of the sixteenth President of the United States. Designed by renowned sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, the twelve-foot-tall bronze statue depicts Lincoln standing in front of a chair, looking down at the ground, poised to make a speech. His right hand is tucked behind his back, while his left firmly grasps the lapel of his jacket. Dedicated on October 22, 1887 in Lincoln Park, the statue rests on a granite pedestal affixed to a semicircular granite exedra designed by distinguished New York architect Stanford White. Ten thousand people attended the unveiling ceremony, among them Lincoln’s grandson, Abraham Lincoln II.
The Chicago History Museum is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Chicago's rich and varied history, as well as American history. The museum is located at the southwestern corner of the city's famous Lincoln Park and housed in a building constructed in 1932; the modern addition was built in 1988. The museum was founded in 1856 as the Chicago Historical Society and given its current name in 2006. Its collection is very large, amounting to 20 million items. The museum features several permanent exhibits including: "Chicago: Crossroads of America," "Sensing Chicago," "Chicago Authored," and "Lincoln's Chicago," which explores President Abraham Lincoln's political rise in Chicago, his presidency, assassination, and legacy. The museum offers many temporary exhibitions as well.
This Lincoln Park monument commemorates printer, inventor, scientist, and Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). A native of Boston who settled in Philadelphia and made a fortune in the printing and publishing business, he garnered international fame for the findings from his experiments with electricity. During the American Revolution, Franklin served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He also traveled abroad to secure diplomatic and military alliances with France and helped to negotiate and draft the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which brought an end to the war and ensured American independence. About a century after Franklin’s death in 1790, the editor of the 'Chicago Tribune,' Joseph Medill, took it upon himself to erect a monument in Franklin’s honor “to keep his memory fresh in the minds of Chicago’s youth.” In partnership with the Old-Time Printers’ Association, Medill commissioned sculptor Richard Henry Park to design it. Installed in 1896 on the east side of the Lincoln Park Zoo, the monument consists of a nine-and-a-half-foot-tall bronze statue of Franklin on a white granite pedestal. The sculpture depicts the Founding Father standing upright, his right leg slightly ahead of his left. Dressed in breeches, a waistcoat, and a knee-length coat, he looks slightly downward with a faint smirk on his face. In 1966, due to the zoo’s expansion, the Chicago Park District relocated the monument to its current location inside Lincoln Park.
Lincoln Park Zoo is one of Chicago's most popular attractions and one of the foremost zoos in the world. It was founded in 1868 and to houses over 1,000 animals including birds, reptiles, great apes, and lions. Animals are housed modern and historic structures, and the zoo is located in Lincoln Park, which gives it a welcoming atmosphere. The zoo is open 365 days a year and remains one of the last free public cultural institutions in the country. Millions of visitors stroll through the park each year.
This Lincoln Park memorial commemorates late nineteenth-century journalist and poet, Eugene Field (1850-1895). A native of St. Louis, he worked at the 'Chicago Morning News' (renamed the 'Record' in 1890) and wrote a column entitled “Sharps and Flats,” which became the most popular column of its time. His poems “Little Boy Blue” (1888) and “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” (1889) not only garnered him national fame, but also earned him the moniker, the “Poet of Childhood.” Following Field’s sudden and unexpected death in 1895, a number of Chicago newspaper editors began an effort to raise funds for the erection of a memorial in honor of the late journalist and poet. The fundraising campaign proved arduous and lasted more than two decades. Thanks to nominal donations from children across the country and a major gift from the B.F. Ferguson Fund of the Art Institute of Chicago, the group was able to commission sculptor Edward Francis McCarten and the architectural firm of Delano & Aldrich to design the memorial. Dedicated in Lincoln Park in 1922, the memorial, entitled 'Dream Lady,' consists of two bronze sculptures on a rectangular granite base. One of the sculptures, a female fairy-like figure, hovers over another of two peacefully sleeping children. Carved into the granite base are scenes and verses from some of Field’s poems. At each end of the rectangular base is a child-sized drinking fountain. The memorial originally stood at the northwest corner of what is now the Lincoln Park Zoo’s Helen Brach Primate House. It was eventually moved to its current location northeast of the exhibit.
This sculpture commemorates beloved, longtime resident of Lincoln Park Zoo, Adelor (1994-2012). Born in South Africa, the male African lion arrived at the zoo in 1995 while still a cub. In the prime of his life, Adelor weighed roughly four hundred and fifty pounds and sported a thick, lush blonde mane. One of the zoo’s most popular residents, he was known for interrupting events held at the Kovler Lion House with his thunderous roar. On the morning of February 1, 2012, after years of declining health, Adelor was euthanized. He was eighteen years old. Following Adelor’s death, zoo donor Zina L. Berman moved to erect a monument in honor of the male lion. To this end, she commissioned husband-and-wife sculptors Jeffrey L. Varilla and Anna Koh Varilla to design it. After about nine months of hard work on the part of the couple, which included studying photographs and film footage of the deceased lion, the result was 'Adelor,' a realistic life-sized bronze sculpture of the zoo’s longtime resident. Unveiled on June 22, 2013 at the East Gate of Lincoln Park Zoo, the statue depicts the male lion in a relaxed, yet attentive pose, his rear legs out to one side and his front legs laid out flat in front of him. With his head turned, he peers over his right shoulder as if scanning the horizon. In November 2017, the zoo temporarily moved the sculpture to storage to make way for the construction of the Searle Visitor Center. A year later, in November 2018, the zoo reinstalled it at its original location with one significant change: a simple stone slab replaced the sculpture’s original outcrop-like pedestal.
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is a natural oasis in the middle of America's second largest city. This educational institution was founded in 1999 by the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, which is known as the "First Museum in the West." This museum allows the people of Chicago and other visitors to connect with, learn about, and appreciate nature and is widely known for the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven, hands-on science instruction, and nature trails.
This Lincoln Park monument honors soldier and statesman, Richard Oglesby (1824-1899). A native of Kentucky and officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, he served three non-consecutive terms as governor of Illinois, as well as a term in the U.S. Senate, during the late nineteenth century. A long-time friend of Abraham Lincoln, Oglesby supported him for president in 1860 and famously labeled him the “rail-splitter” candidate, or the candidate of the common man. He was also present at Lincoln’s bedside when he died in the early morning hours of April 15, 1865. Some years after Oglesby’s death in 1899, five distinguished Chicago residents—Martin B. Bailey, John W. Bunn, L.C. LaForce, John Barton Payne, and J.S. Runnels—pulled their resources to erect a monument in honor of the late Illinois governor. The group hired French-born sculptor Leonard Crunelle to design it. Dedicated in Lincoln Park on November 21, 1919, the monument consists of a ten-foot-tall bronze statue of Oglesby on a granite pedestal. The sculpture depicts Oglesby standing upright, his left leg slightly ahead of his right. He holds his hat in his right hand while his coat is draped over his left arm.
This Lincoln Park monument was dedicated in 1952 and commemorates Founding Father and first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757-1804). A native of the Caribbean island of Nevis, Hamilton was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. A supporter of its ratification, he coauthored the Federalist Papers along with James Madison and John Jay. When George Washington became the first President of the United States, he appointed Hamilton to be the nation’s first secretary of the treasury. On July 12, 1804, Hamilton died from injuries sustained in a duel with Aaron Burr the previous day. Roughly one hundred and twenty-five years after Hamilton's death, Kate Sturges Buckingham, a Chicago philanthropist and patron of the arts, conceived of the idea of a monument in the city to honor Hamilton. She hired English-born sculptor John Angel to design a statue of the Founding Father and renowned Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen to design a grand setting for it. The project stalled when Saarinen’s design was not well received by the public. Kate Buckingham died in 1937 and executors of her estate and the trustees of the monument were slow to act in the years that followed. A series of court rulings in the 1940s mandated that the monument be completed by 1953. Consequently, the trustees hired architect Samuel A. Marx to design a new setting for the statue and selected the city’s Lincoln Park as the location for the monument. Dedicated in 1952, the monument consisted of a thirteen-foot-tall gilded bronze sculpture of Hamilton on a cantilevered block of red granite built into a seventy-eight-foot-tall Black granite stele. The gigantic stele was attached to—and sat at the center of—a Black granite exedra. In 1993, after studies discovered that the monument’s granite setting had major structural design flaws, the Chicago Park District demolished much of it, leaving behind only the red granite pedestal.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
Get a QR Code for this tour
Starting at the statue of Greene Vardiman Black, this tour moves north through Chicago's famed Lincoln Park with stops at a variety of landmarks and monuments along with the Chicago Museum of History and Lincoln Park Zoo.
