Historic Armour Square Park: A Place Worth Protecting

For more than 120 years, Armour Square Park has been a gathering place for generations of South Side families. Its significance reaches far beyond the neighborhood. Created as part of an innovative system of public parks in the early 20th century, Armour Square helped redefine what a neighborhood park could be and what it could provide for the people living around it.

ESTABLISHED 1904 • OPENED 1905 • LISTED ON THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES 2003

Designed by Burnham and the Olmsteds

Armour Square Park was created as part of an ambitious new vision for Chicago’s neighborhoods. Its buildings were designed by D.H. Burnham & Co., the firm of renowned Chicago architect and planner Daniel Burnham, while its landscape was designed by the Olmsted Brothers, successors to the practice of Frederick Law Olmsted.

Armour Square was one of ten innovative neighborhood parks developed by the South Park Commission in the early 1900s. The collaboration between Burnham’s architects and the Olmsted Brothers brought together architecture, landscape design, recreation and community services in a new kind of public space created specifically for people living in Chicago’s densely populated neighborhoods.

More than a century later, that original design and historic landscape remain part of Armour Square Park’s significance.

Praised by a President

Chicago’s new neighborhood parks quickly attracted national attention. During a visit to Chicago in 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt praised the South Park Commission’s innovative park system, which included Armour Square, calling it:

“the most notable civic achievement in any American city.”

The new parks represented a groundbreaking approach to urban life, bringing recreation, green space, architecture and community services directly into Chicago’s densely populated neighborhoods.

Recognized as Historic

In 2003, Armour Square Park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the nation’s official list of places recognized for their significance in American history, architecture, archaeology, engineering and culture.

Importantly, the designation encompasses the entire park, not simply the historic fieldhouse.

National Register recognition does not by itself prevent changes to or around a historic property. But when a federally funded, permitted or approved project may affect a property listed on or eligible for the National Register, federal law can require those effects to be formally considered through the Section 106 historic-preservation review process.

With a major federally connected rail project proposed immediately beside Armour Square Park, its historic status is an important part of the public record and deserves careful consideration.

120 Years of Neighborhood Life

Armour Square Park was designed to be more than a beautiful green space. From the beginning, it was meant to be a place where neighborhood life happened.

For generations, children have learned to swim here, families have gathered here, and neighbors have come to play baseball, basketball, tennis and other sports. The fieldhouse has hosted classes, clubs, arts and crafts, recreation programs and community activities. Over the decades, the park has changed to meet the needs of the people around it while remaining a constant presence in the neighborhood.

The National Register nomination describes Armour Square as having “continuously provided a variety of athletic, recreational, social, and educational programs and services to the community.”

More than 120 years later, Armour Square remains what it was created to be: a place for community life.

A Historic Park Faces a Major Threat

Today, Armour Square Park sits immediately beside the site where Amtrak proposes to build a 24-hour rail maintenance facility.

For more than 120 years, Armour Square Park has provided green space, recreation and a gathering place for the surrounding community. Its historic landscape is itself part of the park’s significance: the National Register documentation identifies the landscape, playfield and paths as contributing historic features.

Now Amtrak proposes to place a major industrial operation alongside this nationally recognized historic park. A round-the-clock maintenance facility would fundamentally change the setting in which generations of Chicagoans have played, gathered and found respite from the surrounding city.

Armour Square Park was created to improve the lives of the people who live around it. A 24-hour industrial rail facility does not belong beside it.

Protect Armour Square Park. Find another site.