Brooks (Oscar) Park

Brooks Park is among the four parks created by the Edison Park District, one of 22 independent park boards consolidated into the Chicago Park District in 1934. Established in 1913, the Edison Park District was still developing parks in the early 1930s. During the preceding decade, the population of the Edison Park neighborhood had increased from 950 to over 5,000 people, but the area's fine homes were still interspersed with farmland. In 1931, the Edison Park District purchased a 2.7-acre tract of open land in the eastern portion of its territory. Also, in 1931 the park site was named Brooks Park in honor of Edison Park District President Oscar E. Brooks (1869--), a prominent local resident and general contractor, who had served as village trustee for five years before becoming a park board member in 1920. By the fall of 1932, improvements were under way at Brooks Park. The site soon had tennis courts, a wading pool, a playground, a trellis-like pergola, and a lawn area that could be flooded for ice-skating in winter.

Within a few short years, the park became part of the newly created Chicago Park District.  The Chicago Park District continued acquiring land for this park from 1949 until 1957 as additional land east of the original park site was acquired and the streets within the park boundary were vacated and incorporated into the park, this land acquisition nearly tripled the park's size. Improvements followed in subsequent years. These included ball fields, a small recreation building, a spray pool, and bocci courts. The Park District constructed a new fieldhouse at the east end of Brooks Park in 1979, replacing the original recreation building near the west end. A new soft surface playground was installed in 1992.