Kelvyn Park
History
Kelvyn was among the original parks of the Northwest Park District, one of 22 park commissions consolidated into the Chicago Park District in 1934. Established in 1911, the Northwest Park District aimed to provide one park for each of the ten square miles within its growing middle-class jurisdiction. The Northwest Park District began to purchase land for Mozart, Kelyvn, and Kosciuszko Parks in early 1914. By 1915, the park district was working with the Special Parks Commission and the West End Fullerton Avenue Improvement Association to develop a plan for Kelvyn Park. American Park Builders Inc., planners of Chicago's Portage Park, produced the landscape design. In 1928, Architect Walter W. Alschlager designed a two-story brick fieldhouse for Kelvyn Park. The building is nearly identical to the fieldhouses of Riis and Simons Parks.
Kelvyn Park takes its name from the surrounding subdivision of the same name. The subdivision honors British Baronet William Thomson Kelvin (1824-1907), an eminent mathematician and physicist whose scientific research revolutionized thinking about the thermal properties of steam.
