The first animals to arrive were a pair of swans that came from New York's Central Park. Interestingly, the grounds of the park was once a cemetery; most of the remains were removed because it was thought that having dead bodies next to the lake was not wise (however, some remains were discovered in the 1960s when the zoo was building new facilities). The Lincoln Park Zoo Commission was established to plan and get its construction underway. The zoo grew steadily in the immediate following decades and firmly established itself as a Chicago destination. With the hiring of director Marvin Perkins in 1945, the zoo entered a period of significant growth under his leadership. He led the expansion, renovation, and restoration of zoo buildings and helped zoos become an important part of American cultural life. The next director, Lester E. Fisher, continued the zoo's growth, overseeing the the construction of the animal hospital, great ape house, and education center, among other accomplishments.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The zoo features lions, giraffes, birds, and many other animals. It is one of the city's top attractions.

Website

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.

Lincoln Park Zoo

A short walk that takes folks through Lincoln Park, starting at the Chicago History Museum on the southern end, up to the Peggy Nobart Nature Museum on the northern end.

The Chicago Historical
Society was formed in 1856 and formally incorporated by the Illinois state
legislature the following year. The Society soon developed an impressive
collection of mostly historic documents for research purposes; it opened its
first museum building on the corner of Ontario and Dearborn Streets. In 1871
the Society was devastated by the Great Chicago Fire that ravaged the city. The
vast majority of its collection was destroyed, including Abraham Lincoln’s
final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. A second fire destroyed nearly
the remainder of the original collection in 1874. The Society worked to rebuild
its collection, and in 1896 it erected a new, stone structure on the site of
its original building. The building, which still stands today, was designed by
Chicago-based architect Henry Ives Cobb, whose work included the Newberry
Library. In 1978 the building was added to the National Register of Historic
Places.

One of the Society’s most
important additions to its museum was the acquisition of the personal
collection of Charles F. Gunther in 1920. Gunther, a local wealthy
confectioner, accumulated thousands of items from around the world, with a
particular focus on the Civil War. Among the artifacts in his collection is the
bed in which Abraham Lincoln died and the table on which Robert E. Lee signed
his surrender agreement at Appomattox. The purchase of Gunther’s collection
transformed the Society from a local history research facility into a
full-fledged national museum. 

In 1932 the growing museum
moved into a new building in the Lincoln Park district, where it remains to
this day. The building has undergone three major expansions and renovations in
1972, 1988, and 2006. Following the 2006 renovation, the Chicago Historical
Society changed its name to The Chicago History Museum as part of a rebranding
effort. Today the museum boasts an impressive and expanding collection of over
20 million artifacts relating to Chicago, Civil War, and American history. It
includes multiple permanent exhibitions on Chicago history, and temporary
exhibits on other topics. It has a large research center containing documents,
images, books, and other printed materials that can be examined for research.
The museum also operates other programs such as lectures, online exhibits, and
the Encyclopedia Chicago project. Since
1995 the Chicago History Museum has also hosted the annual Making History
Awards, honoring individuals and groups that have made remarkable contributions
to Chicago’s history.

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.

The Chicago History Museum

Benjamin Franklin was born to a large, humble Boston family on January 17, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was an English-born candle and soap maker. Despite receiving very little formal education during his early years, he was a voracious reader and developed into a skilled writer. When he was twelve years old, Franklin began an apprenticeship under his older brother James, a printer in the city. In 1723, after a dispute with James, he left his apprenticeship and moved to New York City. Unable to find work, Franklin relocated to Philadelphia, where he found work as a printer. In late 1724, he removed to London, but after less than two years returned to Philadelphia. After briefly working as a clerk, Franklin opened a printing shop, which became highly lucrative. In addition to printing books, currency, and government pamphlets, he published the popular Pennsylvania Gazette beginning in 1729 and Poor Richard’s Almanack starting three years later. Franklin also setup franchises or partnerships with printers all across British North America and invested in rental properties in Philadelphia. By the late 1740s, he had become one of the wealthiest men in the American colonies and was thus able to retire from day-to-day business.  In the late 1740s and early 1750s, Franklin became increasingly engrossed in civic activities and scientific pursuits. He invented bifocals and the Franklin stove, and conducted experiments with electricity, the findings from which garnered him international fame. Additionally, Franklin served as a member of the Philadelphia City Council, a justice of the peace, a city alderman, and a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. He also played a pivotal role in the founding of the Academy of Philadelphia in 1851, which four decades later would become known as the University of Pennsylvania.  Franklin, however, desired a greater public service role. In 1753, he became a royal officeholder when he secured an appointment as deputy postmaster general, a position that put him in charge of all mail in the northern half of the American colonies. The following year, as a delegate to the Albany Congress held at the start of the French and Indian War, Franklin proposed the Albany Plan of Union, which called for cooperation and collective action on the part of the American colonies against the French and their native allies. Although his plan was neither ratified by the colonial legislatures nor approved by the Crown, it laid the groundwork for colonial cooperation in the lead up to the American Revolution.   Nearly uninterrupted from 1757 until 1775, Franklin resided in London. While living in Great Britain carrying out his duties as deputy postmaster general of the American colonies, he received honorary doctorates for his scientific achievements from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland in 1759 and the University of Oxford in 1762. After widespread American opposition to the implementation of the Stamp Act of 1765, Franklin testified before Parliament, calling for the law’s repeal. Perceived as too sympathetic to the American colonies, he was fired from his position as deputy postmaster general in January 1774. His reputation in England ruined, Franklin left London for the American colonies in March 1775. Franklin contributed significantly to the American colonies’ quest for independence from Great Britain. Shortly after arriving in Philadelphia, he was elected a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. In 1776, Franklin served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. That same year, Congress sent him to Europe to seek diplomatic recognition and military aid from France. In 1778, Franklin’s hard work paid off when France recognized the United States and entered into a military alliance with the fledgling nation. Five years later, he helped to negotiate and draft the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which brought an end to the war and secured American independence.  Franklin left France and returned to the United States in 1785. He served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention two years later. Franklin is the only man to have signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and the Constitution. He died in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790 at the age of eighty-four.  About a century later, 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.

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. 

Benjamin Franklin Monument

About 14,000 years ago, a Wisconsinan glacier began its ice-age retreat from modern-day northeast Illinois, leaving "Lake Chicago" in its wake (as Geologists refer to the body of water before it settled into its present-day Lake Michigan location). Indeed, today's Chicago once sat completely underwater. The glacier shrank in stages, with each stage leaving behind sandy beach ridges. Roughly 8,000 years ago, the shoreline sat in modern-day Lincoln Park east of modern-day Clark Street. The historical marker in Lincoln Park, entitled Abandoned Shoreline of Lake Michigan, notes that ancient western extension. The marker does more than note the area's geological history; it speaks to the history of Chicago itself. The retreating shoreline left an area abounding in swampland, rivers, and creeks used by Native Americans and later European and American trappers. As the United States began beginning canals in the early- and mid-twentieth century in an attempt to connect the eastern seaboard with a nation expanding westward, speculators began looking at the Fort Dearborn location (modern-day Chicago) as a good place to invest. It became necessary to turn the swampland into a usable location for both farming and industry. In addition to an abundance of wooden structures that followed, builders installed a network of wooden sidewalks that helped people avoid the swampy land beneath. By 1871, the number of wooden buildings and wooden walkways allowed a once-swampy environment to burn in what became The Great Chicago Fire. After the fire, a host of modern architects arrived to rebuild the city, leading to the birth of skyscrapers (The Chicago School); Chicago grew into one of the world's largest cities with nary a reminder of the swamp that once existed in its place. Today, people can traverse Clark Street, which sits atop the ridge that once rose above the nearby Lake Michigan (Lake Chicago) shoreline nearly 8,000 years ago. Lake Michigan to its east serves as a reminder of its ancient past, while the massive skyline to the west points to the area's transformation from swamp to concrete, glass, and steel. But, it's a never-ending battle between the engineers that have built the city and mother nature — Lake Michigan is not done changing its shape and size, and global climate change is making the battle tougher each day.

This historical marker serves as a reminder that Lake Michigan's shoreline extended much further west until glacial changes eight to fourteen thousand years ago made what was once underwater into marshy lands along the shore. After the glaciers melted but before Chicago matured into a sizable metropolis, the area was an expansive swampy visited by Native Americans but not used as a year-round home. The swampiness spoke to the area's geological history, notably that much of the modern city once within what is today's Lake Michigan.

Abandoned Shoreline of Lake Michigan Marker

<div>Originally, The Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences was&nbsp;founded in 1857 for nature enthusiasts and scientists to gather, share, study, and display their specimens and findings. &nbsp;By 1870, the academy’s collection had grown tremendously and continued to do so until the Great Chicago Fire destroyed the original building. &nbsp;In 1894, the academy moved to Lincoln Park where it remained for the next 100 years and housed several different species of flora and fauna. &nbsp;In 1900,the academy began to focus on education and they created teaching programs for students, certification programs for teachers, and a Children’s Library. &nbsp;In the 1960s, the Junior Academy of Sciences was created, and in 1983, the academy's education department was officially established. The museum’s collections include herpetology, mammalogoy, ornithology, oology, entomology, malacology, paleontology, mineralogy, botany, photography and film, manuscripts and archives, and cultural artifacts that display contain information on different birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, mollusks, plants, and fossils. &nbsp;The museum’s exhibits include Rainforest adventure, Take Flight! Alaska From Above: Photography by Mark Reed, the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven, the Beecher Collections Laboratory, Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rainforest: Photography by Amy Gulick, Rise of the 606 and its Bloomingdale Trail, Extreme Green House, Hands on Habitat, Heritage of Chicago Academy of Sciences, Istock Family Look in Lab, Micole Birdwalk, Mysteries of the Marsh, Nature’s Lunchbox, Nature Trails, Riverworks, Wilderness Walk, and Birds of Chicago. </div><div> </div>

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.  


Lincoln Park Points of Interest Walk

Lincoln Park Zoo

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information