Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
207
cities ar ound this same time had the dual purpose of r elieving the congestion of the
municipal cemeteries closer to to wn and providing pastoral recreational settings for the
Sunday outings of the living. I ndeed, cemeteries like G raceland were the pr ecursors of
such great municipal gr een spaces as Lincoln P ark. Much of Lincoln P ark, in fact, had
been a public cemeter y since Chicago's earliest times. Many who once rested there were
reinterred in Graceland when the plans for building Lincoln P ark went forward.
The Chicago Ar chitecture F oundation (
&
312/922-3432;
www .architecture.org)
offers walking tours of G raceland on selected S undays during A ugust, September, and
October. The tour costs $10 per person and lasts about 2 hours. Among the points of
interest you will discover as you meander the paths of these 121 beautifully landscaped
acres are the R yerson and G etty tombs, famous ar chitectural monuments designed b y
Louis Sullivan. Sullivan himself rests here in the company of sev eral of his most distin-
guished colleagues: D aniel B urnham, L udwig M ies v an der R ohe, and H oward Van
Doren S haw, an establishment ar chitect whose summer home in Lake F orest, called
Ragdale, now operates as a writers' and artists' colony. Some of Chicago's giants of indus-
try and commerce are also buried at Graceland, including Potter Palmer, Marshall Field,
and George Pullman. The Chicago Ar chitecture Foundation offers tours of some other
cemeteries, as w ell, including the O ak Woods Cemeter y, R osehill Cemeter y, and the
suburban Lake F orest Cemeter y. Call for details.
Oak Woods,
located just south of
Hyde Park on the city's south side, is the final r esting place for many of Chicago 's most
famous African-American figures, including Jesse Owens, Ida B. Wells, and Mayor Har-
old Washington.
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