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Sherman Park

1905 establishments in IllinoisBeaux-Arts architecture in IllinoisChicago geography stubsCook County, Illinois Registered Historic Place stubsHistoric districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois
NRHP infobox with nocatParks in ChicagoParks on the National Register of Historic Places in ChicagoSouth Side, Chicago
Sherman Park
Sherman Park

Sherman Park is a sixty-acre park in the New City neighborhood of South Side, Chicago. It was designed by renowned landscape architects John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and celebrated Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. It opened in 1905. The park's recreational facilities include two gymnasiums, a fitness center, a swimming pool, as well as outdoor space for basketball, tennis, baseball, soccer and football.The park was named for John B. Sherman, Burnham's father-in-law and a founder of Chicago's Union Stock Yards.The park was designed specifically to enrich the immigrant, working class residents of the surrounding neighborhood.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Sherman Park (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Sherman Park
South Racine Avenue, Chicago New City

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Latitude Longitude
N 41.796666666667 ° E -87.655 °
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South Racine Avenue 5339
60620 Chicago, New City
Illinois, United States
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Sherman Park
Sherman Park
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Normal Park

Normal Park is the name of a former football and baseball field in Chicago, Illinois, during approximately 1914 through 1951. It was most notably the home field of the Chicago Cardinals before they moved to Comiskey Park. “”Original owner of Normal Park was Jim Brooks of St. Charles, Illinois.”” The field was on a block bounded by South Racine Avenue (to the east, previously Centre Avenue); West 61st Street (north); West 62nd Street (south); and South Throop Street (west). Normal Avenue (or Normal Boulevard) is also sometimes given as one of its bordering streets, although Normal Avenue (500W) is about 7 blocks east of Racine (1200W). There may have been some confusion due to "Normal Park" also having been the name of a Chicago neighborhood in the general area. In local newspapers, the location of the field was typically given as "61st Street and Racine Avenue." The Chicago Cardinals started out as the "Morgan Athletic Club" in 1898 and changed their name to "Racine Normals" after they began playing at Normal Park. Soon after, they became the "Racine Cardinals". According to legend, they assumed that nickname upon acquiring some reddish hand-me-down jerseys from the University of Chicago football team, the Maroons. The Cardinals joined the new American Professional Football Association (soon renamed to what is now the National Football League) and continued to use Normal Park as their home field for several years and continued to be called the Racine Cardinals for a while. They changed their name again, to "Chicago Cardinals", to avoid confusion after the National Football League fielded a team in Racine, Wisconsin. Starting in 1922, they split time between Normal Park and Comiskey Park before finally abandoning the old field in the late 1920s. The park no longer exists. On the eastern portion of the site along Racine sits a Chicago Police Department facility which was built in 1952.[Chicago Tribune, March 30, 1952, part 3 page 9] The western portion of the site is occupied by single family homes built on a cul-de-sac where the field once was. The only evidence of the field is an otherwise unexplained discontinuation of Elizabeth Street, which abruptly ends halfway between 61st and 62nd Streets and then resumes again a half-block north at 61st.

Dexter Park (Chicago)
Dexter Park (Chicago)

Dexter Park was a horse race track in Chicago built in the years following the Civil War. It was named for a gelding and trotter who had set world records for the mile and inspired the naming of several new towns including Dexter, Missouri and Dexter, Texas (a village about an hour north of Dallas). The track's formal opening was held in July of 1867. Early baseball games at Dexter Park that July included a series staged for the touring Washington Nationals. The Nationals had been undefeated until they played the Forest City (Rockford) club, which defeated the Nationals 29-23. This generated a good deal of excitement for a game the next day against the Chicago champions, the Excelsior club. The Nationals proceeded to pummel the Excelsiors 49-4. Some Chicago fans, and local newspapers, accused the Nationals of being "blacklegs", i.e. of having lost to Forest City on purpose, to hype interest in the Excelsior match and the attendant wagering. The Nats complained, and the newspapers retracted their accusations. Dexter Park was the first home of the Chicago White Stockings, one of the oldest professional baseball clubs in operation. Chicago's sporting businessmen formed the White Stockings in 1870 to represent Chicago as the Red Stockings had done for Cincinnati in 1869. The ball field was established inside the track's oval and had its own small set of bleachers encircling the field. When the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players formed in 1871, the White Stockings joined the new league and relocated to the lakefront, at Union Base-Ball Grounds. That move proved ill-fated, as it put the team's home field in the path of the Great Chicago Fire; the club did not field another professional team for two years while it nursed its financial position. Dexter Park was situated on the west side of Halsted Street, between 47th Street to the south and the imaginary line of 42nd Street to the north. This property was owned by, and adjacent to, the Union Stock Yards. The "bird's-eye view" of the stockyards, from ca. 1878, shows part of the race track at the left edge. The track had ceased to be a working race track by 1880. By then it had been cut through by several of the Stock Yards' local roads and railroad spurs.[Chicago Inter Ocean, May 22, 1880, p.7] Its main usage had become conventions and cattle auctions. The last "race" mentioned in the local newspapers came in December of 1881, a 100 yard dash contested (for betting) by two Stock Yards employees "on the old Dexter Park race track".[Chicago Inter Ocean, December 5, 1881, p.6] Dexter Park Pavilion is first mentioned in local newspapers in 1884.[Chicago Inter Ocean, May 22, 1884, p.15] The Pavilion was the site of the famous wrestling bout contested between George Hackenschmidt and Frank Gotch in 1908, in what was considered professional wrestling's first true world championship bout.By 1909, the Pavilion had been renamed the International Amphitheater (I), but the two names were used synonymously in local papers. A marathon was staged between Olympic runners Dorando Pietri and Albert Corey.[Chicago Tribune, January 22, 1909, p.6] The Pavilion / Amphitheater was used for various exhibitions until May 19, 1934,[Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1934, pp.1&5] when it was destroyed by fire. A new arena, the International Amphitheater (II) was built on its site. The racetrack was commemorated by a road to the west of the arena, called Dexter Park Avenue.