Ward's Open Lakefront

Why Chicago's lakefront park has so little built on it.

Collection: Chicago · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

Grant Park lawns below the South Loop skyline · James Conkis, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

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How the story begins

Aaron Montgomery Ward beat Marshall Field's eight million dollars with a line on an old map. Field died in 1906 and left the money for a natural history museum. The planners wanted it as the centrepiece of this park. The park commissioners signed a contract to build. Ward stood in the way. He had made his fortune selling by mail, and he owned lots on Michigan Avenue. The old map of this shore said: “Public ground forever to remain vacant of buildings.”

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