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Undeveloped DuSable Park, with the city skyline in the background.
Location:

401 N. Lake Shore Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611

Supervisor: Jason Zaffaroni (Lake Shore Park)
Phone Numbers: Main (312) 742-7891

 

Description

**** PLEASE NOTE:  The park is not currently open to the public. ****

We want to know your vision for #DusablePark. We are looking for public feedback for the development of this historic park as design planning begins.  Click here to share your feedback.

 

DuSable Park is an undeveloped 3.44 acre peninsula of reclaimed land located along the Lake Michigan shoreline directly east of North Lake Shore Drive and north of the Chicago River.

The site was created in the 1860s when fill materials were placed along the Lake Michigan shoreline.  Presently, the site is surrounded to the south, east and north by the waters of the Chicago River and Ogden slip.

The Chicago Park District has received some funding support from the U.S. EPA to preform land remediation on the site. From July through September 2012, the Chicago Park District completed remediation of this site.

While there is no structured programming taking place at this location, we invite you to check out our great programs offered at nearby Lake Shore Park.

History

Currently under development near the mouth of the Chicago River and the shore of Lake Michigan, DuSable Park honors Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable (ca. 1745-1818), the first non-Native American settler at Chicago. A Haitian of French and African descent, DuSable traveled to New Orleans in 1764. The following year he journeyed up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, where he began to trade with the local Indians and married a young Potawatomi woman. As early as 1772, DuSable moved on to Chicago, establishing a remote trading post near what is now Pioneer Court, just north of the river.

DuSable's world began to change after the Revolutionary War, when the American government claimed the Great Lakes region as its own, and settlers began arriving from the east. In 1800, DuSable sold his property at Chicago and went south to Peoria. Two centuries after DuSable's departure, Chicago is an unimaginably different place, home to nearly three million residents, with skyscrapers lining the Chicago River and the lakefront.

In the mid-1980s, developers began to improve 60 acres of under-utilized industrial land north of the river with residences and commercial structures. To provide parkland for the new City Center, the Chicago Dock and Canal Trust donated more than three acres of property east of Lake Shore Drive to the Chicago Park District in 1988. 

Advisory Council

Contact: Paul Montes,   President
Meeting Details:

Due to an abundance of caution Park Advisory Council meetings will be held virtually. Please contact the DuSable Park Advisory Council for meeting information.

Map & Facilities

DuSable (Jean Baptiste Pointe) Park

401 N. Lake Shore Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611
United States

:
(312) 742-7891