Welles (Gideon) Park

One of five parks created by the Lincoln Park Commission and named for a member of President Abraham Lincoln's cabinet, Welles Park honors Gideon Welles (1802-1878), Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869. Since the Lincoln Park Commission's formation in 1869, its primary responsibility was to improve and manage Lincoln Park and its connecting boulevards. By 1908, the commissioners were impressed with new neighborhood parks on Chicago's south and west sides, and began efforts to create similar parks on the city's north side. In 1910, the Lincoln Park Commission acquired and transformed an initial 8-acre site into Welles Park. The commissioners began leasing a large property just east of the park in 1922, and several years later it would be purchased to permanently enlarge Welles Park. In 1934, the park became part of the Chicago Park District’s portfolio when the Lincoln Park Commission and 21 other park commissions were consolidated. In 1942, the Park District purchased the leased portion of the park and acquired City-owned land in 1957, pursuant to the Chicago Park and City Exchange of Functions Act.

A small fieldhouse opened in Welles Park in 1915. This was replaced by a modern facility in 1970. In the 1920s, Abe Saperstein (1902-1966) began his career as a basketball coach in the Welles Park fieldhouse. Saperstein soon recruited south side African-American basketball players to play at a Jewish youth center in the Maxwell Street neighborhood. In 1927, he began coaching a semi-professional black basketball team. Known as the Savoy Big Five, because they played twice a week at the south side Savoy Ballroom. Saperstein soon took the team on the road, driving the players in his own Model T Ford. He renamed the team the Harlem Globetrotters to suggest an all-black travelling team. Saperstein encouraged the players to do trick moves with the basketball, and they became the one of the world's most entertaining and well-known basketball teams. In 1971, Abe Saperstein was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.