Burnham Park (Chicago)

The Stephen A. Douglas Tomb and Memorial or Stephen Douglas Monument Park is a memorial that includes the tomb of United States Senator Stephen A. Douglas (1813 – 1861). It is located at 636 E. 35th Street in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois (part of the city's Douglas community), near the site of the Union Army and prisoner of war Camp Douglas. The land was originally owned by Douglas’ estate but was sold to the state of Illinois, when it became known as “Camp Douglas” serving first as training grounds for Union soldiers during the Civil War, then as a prisoner of war camp. The memorial is a 96-foot granite structure comprising three circular bases and a 20-foot diameter octagonal mausoleum which holds Douglas’ sarcophagus. Large bronze allegorical figures portraying “Illinois,” “History,” “Justice,” and “Eloquence” are positioned at the four main corners of the mausoleum. Four bas-reliefs in the panels of the main base depict the advance of American civilization. A ten-foot statue of the Douglas stands atop a 46 ft column of white marble from his native state, Vermont.Douglas, best remembered for debating Abraham Lincoln over slavery, died from typhoid fever on June 3, 1861 in Chicago, where he was buried on the shore of Lake Michigan. Immediately after his death an association of notable Chicagoans was formed to oversee the construction of a suitable tomb and monument, but its members failed to raise sufficient funds. In 1865 the state of Illinois purchased the tomb from Douglas' widow, Adele Douglas, for $25,000. On June 3, 1868, Douglas' body was placed in the completed portion of the tomb. Leonard Volk, a relative of Douglas, designed the tomb and monument. In 1871 the Great Chicago Fire destroyed Volk's plans for the unfinished structure. The tomb was completed in May 1881, after an expense of $90,000.The memorial was designated a Chicago Landmark on September 28, 1977. The tomb is maintained by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency as a state historic site. On July 14, 2020 three members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus called for the removal of the statue, dubbing it “a tribute to a widely known racist and sexist."

The Soldiers' Home is an Italianate style house in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The Soldiers' House is located at 739 E. 35th St. The house was built in a series of phases from 1864 to 1923 by William W. Boyington and other various architects. It was designated a Chicago Landmark on April 16, 1996. The Soldiers' Home is the last surviving building with exact association to the Civil War. During the war the home served as a hospital for injured soldiers. After the war it became a home for disabled Union Army Veterans.

The Old University of Chicago was the legal name given in 1890 to the University of Chicago's first incorporation. The school, founded in 1856 by Baptist church leaders, was originally called the "University of Chicago" (or, interchangeably, "Chicago University"). After years of financial struggle, the university's campus was badly damaged by fire, the school was foreclosed on by its creditors, its classes ceased in 1886, and it no longer admitted students. Rather than try to continue operations, its trustees decided in 1890 to change the school's name to the "Old University of Chicago" and allow the establishment of a new legal entity that would once again be called the "University of Chicago".Both the Northwestern University School of Law and the University of Chicago Divinity School began as departments of the Old University. While the present-day University of Chicago, which was established in 1890, is a separate legal entity and in a different location, it recognized Old University of Chicago alumni as its own and maintained a number of other continuities from its pre-1890 origins.

Lincoln Gardens, also known during its history as Royal Gardens, Royal Gardens Café, the New Charleston Café and Café de Paris, was a night club and dance hall that played an instrumental role in the history of jazz and youth culture in the city of Chicago during the first three decades of the 20th century. Opening sometime in the first few years of the 20th century, it was the largest dance hall in South Side, Chicago prior to the opening of the Savoy Ballroom in 1927. Originally a venue that employed only white musicians and catered to only white patrons, it was reinvented as a space for patrons and musicians of all races by African-American entrepreneurs Virgil Williams and William Bottoms in 1918. This reinvented venue was at first the home of Bill Johnson and the Original Creole Band. Later King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band was the resident band at the venue from 1922 through 1924. It closed in June 1927 after the establishment was bombed.

Camp Douglas, in Chicago, Illinois, sometimes described as "The North's Andersonville," was one of the largest Union Army prisoner-of-war camps for Confederate soldiers taken prisoner during the American Civil War. Based south of the city on the prairie, it was also used as a training and detention camp for Union soldiers. The Union Army first used the camp in 1861 as an organizational and training camp for volunteer regiments. It became a prisoner-of-war camp in early 1862. Later in 1862 the Union Army again used Camp Douglas as a training camp. In the fall of 1862, the Union Army used the facility as a detention camp for paroled Confederate prisoners (these were Union soldiers who had been captured by the Confederacy and sent North under an agreement that they would be held temporarily while formal prisoner exchanges were worked out). Camp Douglas became a permanent prisoner-of-war camp from January 1863 to the end of the war in May 1865. In the summer and fall of 1865, the camp served as a mustering out point for Union Army volunteer regiments. The camp was dismantled and the movable property was sold off late in the year. The land was eventually sold-off and developed. In the aftermath of the war, Camp Douglas eventually came to be noted for its poor conditions and death rate of about seventeen percent. Some 4,275 Confederate prisoners were known to be re-interred from the camp cemetery to a mass grave at Oak Woods Cemetery after the war.

Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center was an American hospital located in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1881, Michael Reese Hospital was a major research and teaching hospital and one of the oldest and largest hospitals in Chicago, Illinois. It was located at 2929 S. Ellis Avenue on the near south side of Chicago, next to Lake Shore Drive (U.S. Route 41) which lies along Lake Michigan. The hospital closed its Internal Medicine Residency at the end of the 2007–2008 academic year and finished transferring patients to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center before the end of 2008. The 48-acre campus was then vacated by January 2009. From 2007 to its closing, Michael Reese had been owned by Envision Hospital Corporation of Scottsdale, Arizona. The hospital officially closed August 31, 2009. At one time, the hospital had a large health plan which included 300,000 patients; at the time of the hospital's closure the health plan was terminated and it only had 2,900 clients. The streets through the campus were closed and demolition began in October 2009.

The Light of Truth: Ida B. Wells National Monument is a bronze and marble public sculpture by artist Richard Hunt. Located in the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, the sculpture takes its name from a quote by civil rights activist and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931): "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them". It was unveiled in 2021 by the Ida B. Wells Commemorative Art Committee.

Olivet Baptist Church is a church located in Chicago, Illinois. The congregation first formed in 1861 through the merger of two African-American congregations.

The Ida B. Wells Homes, which also comprised the Clarence Darrow Homes and Madden Park Homes, was a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project located in the heart of the Bronzeville neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It was bordered by 35th Street to the north, Pershing Road (39th Street) to the south, Cottage Grove Avenue to the east, and Martin Luther King Drive to the west. The Ida B. Wells Homes consisted of rowhouses, mid-rises, and high-rise apartment buildings, first constructed 1939 to 1941 to house African American tenants. They were closed and demolished beginning in 2002 and ending in 2011.

The Supreme Life Building is a historic insurance building located at 3501 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in the Douglas community area of Chicago, Illinois. Built in 1921, the building served as the headquarters of the Supreme Life Insurance Company, which was founded two years earlier by Frank L. Gillespie. The company, originally known as the Liberty Life Insurance Company, was the first African-American owned insurance company in the northern United States. Since white-owned insurance firms regularly denied black customers life insurance when the firm was founded, the firm played an important role in providing life insurance to Chicago's African-American community. The company ultimately became the largest African-American owned business in the northern states and became a symbol of the predominantly black Bronzeville neighborhood's economic success from the 1920s to the 1950s.In the 1990s, the building was nearly demolished before it was purchased by the Black Metropolis Convention and Tourism Council. The group rehabilitated the building in 2005, and it now serves as the Bronzeville Visitor Information Center.The building was designated as a Chicago Landmark on September 9, 1998. It is one of nine buildings designated as part of the Black Metropolis-Bronzeville District.

The Roloson Houses, also known as the Robert W. Roloson Houses, are a group of four adjacent row houses in the Douglas community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. The houses were designed in 1894 by architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) for client Robert W. Roloson (1848-1925). Construction was begun in 1894 and completed in early 1895. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. They were designated a Chicago Landmark on December 27, 1979.

Douglas, on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, is one of Chicago's 77 community areas. The neighborhood is named for Stephen A. Douglas, Illinois politician and Abraham Lincoln's political foe, whose estate included a tract of land given to the federal government. This tract later was developed for use as the Civil War Union training and prison camp, Camp Douglas, located in what is now the eastern portion of the Douglas neighborhood. Douglas gave that part of his estate at Cottage Grove and 35th to the Old University of Chicago. The Chicago 2016 Olympic bid planned for the Olympic Village to be constructed on a 37-acre (15 ha) truck parking lot, south of McCormick Place, that is mostly in the Douglas community area and partly in the Near South Side.The Douglas community area stretches from 26th Street, south to Pershing Road along the Lake Shore, including parts of the Green Line, along State Street and the Metra Electric and Amtrak passenger railroad tracks, which run parallel to Lake Shore Drive. Burnham Park runs along its shoreline, containing 31st Street Beach. The community area also contains part of the neighborhood of Bronzeville, the historic center of black culture in the city, since the early 20th century and the Great Migration.