Cragin Park
History
Cragin Park is among thirteen parks created by the Northwest Park District, one of 22 park commissions consolidated into the Chicago Park District in 1934. In 1927, the Fullerton Avenue Highlands Improvement Association asked the Northwest Park District to construct a recreational center in that organization's Belmont Cragin neighborhood. The park district agreed, and began to purchase parkland immediately. Playground apparatus was installed in 1928, and tennis courts in 1931. The Wrightwood Avenue Improvement Club petitioned for a fieldhouse, but none was built until 1954. Cragin Park is named for the surrounding neighborhood, which in turn took its name from a 19th-century industrial suburb. The Cragin brothers built their metals manufacturing plant along the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad in 1883. By the following year, more than 200 people lived in the vicinity of the factory and its Cragin station.
