Portal:Chicago/Selected article/49

Burnham Park is a public park in Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The six mile (9.66 km) long 598 acre (2.4 km²) park is composed of Chicago Park District property that connects Grant Park to Jackson Park (14th St. to 56th St.) along the Lake Michigan lakefront. It was named for urban planner and architect Daniel Burnham in 1927. Burnham was one of the designers of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Businessman A. Montgomery Ward felt that Chicago needed to have a publicly accessible, "forever open, clear and free" lakefront lest the city descend into the squalor typical of American cities of the time, with buildings and heavy industry destroying any chance for beauty. To this day the city's lakefront is open from the former city limits at Hollywood down to the steel mills near Rainbow Beach.