The Boulevard System

Chicago’s boulevards form one of the nation’s largest and oldest boulevard systems, with 28 miles, 540 acres of green space, and links between seven inland parks and Lake Michigan. Though originally built on the city’s outskirts, they now encircle Chicago’s heart and lie within three blocks of the homes of one out of every six residents. In 1837, when Chicago adopted the motto Urbs in Horto, there were few parks, and John S. Wright proposed a vast network of parks and boulevards to encourage development and surround the city with a connected chain of parks and parkways. After two decades, the 1869 Illinois parks bills created three regional park commissions to build a unified system linked by pleasure drives. The South Commission hired Frederick Law Olmstead, the West Commission’s lead designer was William LeBaron Jenney, and later Jens Jensen gave the west parks and boulevards a more natural look with native plantings, while legal challenges prevented construction of the North Commission’s design for Diversey Parkway. Much of the system was built during the late 19th-century real estate boom, and the boulevards became popular places for promenading, horseback riding, and carriage travel along the smooth roads, while also drawing residential development, including grand mansions along Grand, now King Drive, and Drexel boulevards. Chicago’s grand park system gained national notice during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park and along the Midway Plaisance, inspiring similar park and parkway development in Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Washington, D.C. In the early 1930s, the three park commissions were consolidated into the Chicago Park District, which maintained the boulevards until 1959, when responsibility passed to the City of Chicago. The system remains a testament to the vision that helped establish Chicago as a national model.

Chicago, Illinois · United States