Schreiber Park

As late as 1870, there were fewer than ten families living west of Ridge Avenue in what is now the southwestern portion of Rogers Park. Among these were the Schreibers. Nicholas and Katherine Schreiber had arrived from Mainz, Germany in 1848, purchasing 40 acres of land near Devon Avenue and Green Bay Road (now Clark Street). Nicholas died suddenly just a few months before the birth of his twin sons, Dominick and Michael. Raised by their mother and an older brother, the twins eventually took control of the family farm. They expanded their holdings to 160 acres, and engaged in truck farming. Dominick built greenhouses on the land, and found success in the floral business. In 1877, he built a two-story frame house on Ridge Avenue, near his boyhood home. Twenty years later, the brothers subdivided their land; Schreiber Avenue runs through their former farmstead. Schreiber Park is among numerous playgrounds established by the City of Chicago in the years following World War II. Land acquisition began in 1948. By the time of the park's October, 1950 dedication, the city's Bureau of Parks and Recreation had improved the site with a shelter house, a sand box, and a playing field that was flooded for ice skating in winter. The city transferred Schreiber Park to the Chicago Park District in 1959. In 1997, the park district expanded the site through an Illinois Department of Natural Resources development grant, bringing the park's size to just over an acre.