About this property
Humboldt Park is an 207-acre (84 ha) urban park located at 1400 North Sacramento Avenue in West Town, on the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. To its west is the neighborhood named after it, also called Humboldt Park. It opened in 1877, and is one of the largest parks on the West Side. The park's designers include William Le Baron Jenney, and Jens Jensen. The park was named for Alexander von Humboldt, a German naturalist and botanist. William Le Baron Jenney began developing the park in the 1870s, molding a flat prairie landscape into a "pleasure ground" with horse trails and a pair of lagoons. Originally named "North Park", it opened to the public in 1877, but landscape architects such as Jens Jensen made significant additions to the park over the next few decades. Between 1905 and 1920, Jensen connected the two lagoons with a river, planted a rose garden, and built a fieldhouse, boathouse, and music pavilion. In 2018, the Chicago Park District and Chicago Parks Foundation partnered with the Garden Conservancy organization to improve the Jens Jensen Formal Garden. They rehabilitated the natural landscape and repaired deteriorating infrastructure, winning the 2018 Jens Jensen Award from the Illinois chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects. The park played a prominent role in the past for Chicago's Polish community. The Polish Constitution Day Parade once traditionally terminated here at the Tadeusz Kosciuszko statue that was located here before it was moved to the Solidarity Promenade on the lakefront Museum Campus in 1981. Additionally, pianist and Polish statesman Ignace Paderewski delivered a famous address where he rallied Chicagoans to the cause of a free and independent Poland. From 2012 to 2014, Humboldt Park was the home of the punk rock–based music festival Riot Fest and Carnival. For 2015, the three-day music festival was met with opposition from Alderman Roberto Maldonado and local residents over the condition of the grass, lack of accessibility during and after the festival, and gentrification of the surrounding area. This led to the festival's relocation south to Douglass Park. In 2019, an alligator (a non-native species to the Midwest) was found at the park's lagoon, capturing much interest and media attention. The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The boathouse pavilion was named a Chicago Landmark on November 13, 1996. The stables and receptory became a Chicago Landmark on February 6, 2008. The stable and receptory is a single building. It was built in 1895–1896 as a half-timbered German country house that combined Queen Anne revival features. The eclectic architecture also incorporated some neo-medieval and neo-romanesque details, like turrets and a Richardsonian courtyard porte-cochere.
Location
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Everything a full report reveals about Humboldt Park
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Questions about this property
When was Humboldt Park listed on the National Register?
Humboldt Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 20, 1992.
What type of historic resource is Humboldt Park?
Humboldt Park is classified as a district in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Humboldt Park?
The period of significance for Humboldt Park is recorded as the listed era.
Can I research the history near Humboldt Park?
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