The Chicago History Museum is dedicated to the preservation and promotion of Chicago's rich and varied history, as well as American history. The museum is located at the southwestern corner of the city's famous Lincoln Park and housed in a building constructed in 1932; the modern addition was built in 1988. The museum was founded in 1856 as the Chicago Historical Society and given its current name in 2006. Its collection is very large, amounting to 20 million items. The museum features several permanent exhibits including: "Chicago: Crossroads of America," "Sensing Chicago," "Chicago Authored," and "Lincoln's Chicago," which explores President Abraham Lincoln's political rise in Chicago, his presidency, assassination, and legacy. The museum offers many temporary exhibitions as well.
This Lincoln Park monument commemorates printer, inventor, scientist, and Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). A native of Boston who settled in Philadelphia and made a fortune in the printing and publishing business, he garnered international fame for the findings from his experiments with electricity. During the American Revolution, Franklin served on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence. He also traveled abroad to secure diplomatic and military alliances with France and helped to negotiate and draft the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which brought an end to the war and ensured American independence. About a century after Franklin’s death in 1790, the editor of the 'Chicago Tribune,' Joseph Medill, took it upon himself to erect a monument in Franklin’s honor “to keep his memory fresh in the minds of Chicago’s youth.” In partnership with the Old-Time Printers’ Association, Medill commissioned sculptor Richard Henry Park to design it. Installed in 1896 on the east side of the Lincoln Park Zoo, the monument consists of a nine-and-a-half-foot-tall bronze statue of Franklin on a white granite pedestal. The sculpture depicts the Founding Father standing upright, his right leg slightly ahead of his left. Dressed in breeches, a waistcoat, and a knee-length coat, he looks slightly downward with a faint smirk on his face. In 1966, due to the zoo’s expansion, the Chicago Park District relocated the monument to its current location inside Lincoln Park.
This historical marker serves as a reminder that Lake Michigan's shoreline extended much further west until glacial changes eight to fourteen thousand years ago made what was once underwater into marshy lands along the shore. After the glaciers melted but before Chicago matured into a sizable metropolis, the area was an expansive swampy visited by Native Americans but not used as a year-round home. The swampiness spoke to the area's geological history, notably that much of the modern city once within what is today's Lake Michigan.
Lincoln Park Zoo is one of Chicago's most popular attractions and one of the foremost zoos in the world. It was founded in 1868 and to houses over 1,000 animals including birds, reptiles, great apes, and lions. Animals are housed modern and historic structures, and the zoo is located in Lincoln Park, which gives it a welcoming atmosphere. The zoo is open 365 days a year and remains one of the last free public cultural institutions in the country. Millions of visitors stroll through the park each year.
The Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum is a natural oasis in the middle of America's second largest city. This educational institution was founded in 1999 by the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, which is known as the "First Museum in the West." This museum allows the people of Chicago and other visitors to connect with, learn about, and appreciate nature and is widely known for the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven, hands-on science instruction, and nature trails.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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A short walk that takes folks through Lincoln Park, starting at the Chicago History Museum on the southern end, up to the Peggy Nobart Nature Museum on the northern end.
