Grant Park

Proudly referred to as Chicago's "front yard," Grant Park is among the city's most beautiful and prominent parks. Its nearly 320 acres encompasses the Museum Campus, a 1995 transformation of paved areas into beautiful greenspace that is now home to three world-class museums - the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium. Grant Park's centerpiece, however, is the popular Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain, built in 1927 to provide a monumental focal point while protecting the park's breathtaking lakefront views.

Grant Park dates back to 1835, when forsighted citizens lobbied to protect the open space from commercial lakefront development. As a result, the park's original area east of Michigan Avenue was designated "public ground forever to remain vacant of buildings." Officially named Lake Park in 1847, the site soon suffered from lakefront erosion. The Illinois Central Railroad agreed to build a breakwater to protect the area in exchange for permission for an offshore train trestle. After the Great Fire of 1871, the area between the shore and trestle became a dump site for piles of charred rubble, the first of many landfill additions. New landfill at the park's southern border allowed construction of the Field Museum to begin, and the park evolved slowly. In 1934, the South Park Commission was consolidated into the Chicago Park District, which completed improvements using federal relief funds.

In the early 2000s, the north end of Grant Park underwent a multi-million-dollar facelift as old railbeds were transformed into Millennium Park.  On the night of November 4, 2008, Barack Obama celebrated his election as President of the United States in Hutchinson Field, at the south end of Grant Park.  Thousands of spectators, along with media from all over the world, attended this historical event in Chicago's front yard.

Grant Park's Features and attractions include:

• Buckingham Fountain
• Daley Bicentennial Plaza Fieldhouse & Ice Rink
• Millennium Park
• Hutchinson Field
• Petrillo Bandshell & Butler Field
• Dog-friendly Area

Grant Park's gardens include:

• Spirit of Music Garden
• Grant Park Formal Garden

• Congress Triangle Garden
• Congress Median Garden
• Congress Plaza Gardens
• Cancer Survivors Garden
• South President's Court Garden
• North President's Court Garden
• Buckingham Fountain Flower Garden 

Grant Park's public art, statues and monuments include:

• Agora
• Magdalene
• Christopher Columbus Monument
• General John Logan Monument
• Richard Oglesby Monument 
• Spirit of Music 
• Sir George Solti Bust
• Montgomery Ward Bust
• Seated Lincoln 
• Fountain Figures
• Rosenberg Fountain
• Reading Cones
• Equestrian Indians 
• Eagles 
• Art Institute Lions