Ogden (William) Park

Named for William B. Ogden (1805-1877), Chicago's first mayor, Ogden Park opened to the public in 1905. The site was one of ten revolutionary parks created to provide relief to Chicago's overcrowded tenement districts. The other nine were Sherman, Palmer, and Hamilton Parks and Armour, Russell, Davis, Cornell, and Mark White Squares. (Mark White Square is now known as McGuane Park.) Offering a variety of valuable recreational, educational, and social services to their surrounding communities, these ten properties soon influenced the development of other parks throughout the nation. Nationally renowned landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers and architects Daniel H. Burnham and Co. created a unique design for each park. Ogden, however, shared traits with Sherman Park in terms of both size and design. Each site was 60 acres in size. Additionally, each had a beautiful landscape with a meandering waterway near a meadow of ballfields. Ogden Park's waterway was drained and filled in 1940. The classically-designed fieldhouse underwent a major remodeling in 1972. In 1998, the Chicago Park District created a major regional playground in Ogden Park. One of the city's most exciting places for children, the Ogden Park playground includes assembly and stage areas, play equipment, an interactive water feature, and a canopied carousel.