As with many famous Chicago landmarks, this week’s location, a park, was featured in one of Chicago’s World’s Fair. First conceived in 1909 by famous architect Daniel Burnham, the park was originally meant to be one island in a five island chain spanning 12th street to Jackson Park. It was to feature recreational areas, greenery, and scenic views of the city. However, these plans never came to fruition and instead of five islands, we ended up with only one. Just 3 short years after coming up with the plan for the park, Daniel Burnham died and his co-author, Edward H Bennett took over trying to make the plan a reality. It wouldn’t be for another 8 years until in 1920, Chicago voters agreed to spend $20 million (a quarter of a billion dollars today) to finally bring Burnham’s dream to fruition.

Aside from being yet another man-made marvel in a city full of them, this park has served a surprising variety of different functions. In 1933-1934, the island became the main hub for the “Century of Progress” Chicago World’s Fair. Among the events that occurred during this World’s Fair was the first transatlantic flight from Italy to Chicago. However, at the time, Chicago did not have a well developed airport, so the flight had to be made on flying boats, so that they could land in the water. This brought to light the dire need for a Chicago airport, which prompted a push to turn the island into a airport. By 1946, construction of an airport began on this island.

By the turn of the century, the airport ceased to be as important as it was in the mid 20th century, and the lease was set to expire in 1996 anyways. As a result, Mayor Richard J Daley proposed to turn the island into a lakefront park, but these plans were never realized under his administration. His son, Mayor Richard M Daley promised to keep the airport running until 2006, but in 2003 he broke this promise, tearing the airport down overnight. Since then, the Chicago Parks District has been running this island as a public park with recreational areas, greenery, and scenic views of the city, thus partially fulfilling the vision of Daniel Burnham from over 100 years ago.

Think you know where this place is? Take our quiz to test your knowledge: https://www.qzzr.com/c/quiz/146008/a92619d1-bbb2-46b5-b843-f1d0b6f7c612

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