Cochran Playlot Park (c/o Schreiber Park)
History
The Chicago Park District purchased this paved lot in the Edgewater community from the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in 1974. Pick-up basketball games were common here even before the site became a park, so, in 1980, the park district installed permanent basketball standards and planted trees and shrubs around the small park's borders. The following year, the park district named the newly-improved park for John L. Cochran (1857-1923), Edgewater's primary developer. Born in Sacramento, California and educated in Philadelphia, Cochran moved to Chicago, becoming one of the first directors of the Chicago Title and Trust Company. Beginning in 1885, Cochran bought and subdivided land along the lakeshore north of Chicago. To draw residential buyers, he constructed wide streets, stone sidewalks, and a drainage system. Real estate advertisements claimed Cochran's Edgewater development was "the only electric lighted suburb adjacent to Chicago." The City of Chicago annexed the community in 1889.
