Graceland Cemetery

Graceland Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
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Location	4001 N. Clark Street,[2] Chicago, Illinois
Coordinates	41°57′16.2″N 87°39′44.2″W / 41.954500°N 87.662278°W / 41.954500; -87.662278Coordinates: 41°57′16.2″N 87°39′44.2″W / 41.954500°N 87.662278°W / 41.954500; -87.662278
Area	119 acres (48 ha)
Built	1860
NRHP reference No.	00001628[1]
Added to NRHP	January 18, 2001

Graceland Cemetery is a large historic garden cemetery located in the north side community area of Uptown, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, USA. Established in 1860, its main entrance is at the intersection of Clark Street and Irving Park Road. Among the cemetery's 121 acres are the burial sites of several well-known Chicagoans.^[3]

Graceland includes a naturalistic reflecting lake, surrounded by winding pathways, and its pastoral plantings have led it to become a certified arboretum of more than 2,000 trees. The cemetery's wide variety of burial monuments include several designed by famous architects, some of whom are also buried there.^[4]

History[]

Thomas Barbour Bryan, a Chicago businessman, established Graceland Cemetery in 1860 with the original 80-acre layout designed by Swain Nelson.^[3][5] Bryan's son, Daniel Page Bryan, was the first person to be buried at the cemetery after having been disinterred and removed from the city cemetery in Lincoln Park along with approximately 2,000 other individuals.^[6][7] In 1870, Horace Cleveland designed curving paths, open vistas, and a small lake to create a park-like setting.^[5] In 1878, Bryan hired his nephew Bryan Lathrop as president. In 1879, the cemetery acquired an additional 35 acres (14 ha), and Ossian Cole Simonds was hired as its landscape architect to design the addition. Lathrop and Simonds wanted to incorporate naturalistic settings to create picturesque views that were the foundation of the Prairie style.^[5][7][8] Lathrop was open to new ideas and provided opportunities for experimentation which led to Simonds use of native plants including oak, ash, witch hazel, and dogwood at a time when many viewed native plants as invasive. The Graceland Cemetery Association designated one section of the grounds to be devoid of monuments and instituted a review process led by Simonds for monuments and family plots.^[9] Simonds later became the superintendent at Graceland until 1897, and continued on as a consultant until his death in 1931.^[5][10]

Graceland Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 18, 2001.^[11]

Geography[]

Graceland Cemetery is an example of a rural cemetery, which is a style of cemetery characterized by landscaped natural areas. The concept of the rural cemetery emerged in the early 19th century as a response to overcrowding and poor maintenance in existing cemeteries in Europe.^[12]

In the 19th century, a occupied the eastern edge of the cemetery, where the Chicago "L" train now runs. The line was also used to carry mourners to funerals, in specially rented funeral cars. As a result, there was an entry through the east wall, which has since been closed. When founded, the cemetery was well outside the city limits of Chicago. After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Lincoln Park, which had been the city's cemetery, was deconsecrated and some of the bodies were reinterred to Graceland Cemetery.^{[citation needed]}

The edge of the pond around Daniel Burnham's burial island was once lined with broken headstones and coping transported from Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park was redeveloped as a recreational area. A single mausoleum remains, the "Couch tomb", containing the remains of Ira Couch.^[13] The Couch Tomb is probably the oldest extant structure in the City, everything else having been destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire.^[14]

The cemetery's walls are topped off with wrought iron spear point fencing.^{[citation needed]}

Notable tombs and monuments[]

Many of the cemetery's tombs are of great architectural or artistic interest, including the Getty Tomb, the Martin Ryerson Mausoleum (both designed by architect Louis Sullivan, who is also buried in the cemetery), and the Schoenhofen Pyramid Mausoleum. The industrialist George Pullman was buried at night, in a lead-lined coffin within an elaborately reinforced steel-and-concrete vault, to prevent his body from being exhumed and desecrated by labor activists.^{[citation needed]}

William Hulbert, the first president of the National League, has a monument in the shape of a baseball with the names of the original National League cities on it.^[15]

Along with its other famous burials, the cemetery is notable for two statues by sculptor Lorado Taft, Eternal Silence for the Graves family plot and The Crusader that marks Victor Lawson's final resting place.

The cemetery is also the final resting place of 33 victims of the Iroquois Theatre fire, in which more than 600 people died.^[16]

Notable burials[]

The mausoleum of Potter Palmer and Bertha Honoré Palmer

• David Adler, architect^[17]
• Walter Webb Allport, dentist^[18]
• John Peter Altgeld, Governor of Illinois^[19]
• Amabel Anderson Arnold, organized the Woman's State Bar Association of Missouri, the first association of women lawyers in the world^[20]
• Philip Danforth Armour, meat packing magnate^[19]
• Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame baseball player^[21]
• Frederic Clay Bartlett, artist, art collector
• Mary Hastings Bradley, author^[22]
• Lorenz Brentano, member of the State House of Representatives, United States consul at Dresden, Congressional Representative for Illinois^[23]
• Doug Buffone, Chicago Bears former linebacker, host WSCR^[24]
• Daniel H. Burnham, architect^[25]
• Fred A. Busse, mayor of Chicago^[26]
• Justin Butterfield, attorney, land grant developer^[27]
• Lydia Avery Coonley, author^[28]
• Oscar Stanton De Priest^[29] first African American in the 20th century to be elected to Congress.
• William Deering, founder of Deering Harvester Company, which later became International Harvester Company, father of James and Charles Deering^[30]
• James Deering, executive of Deering Harvester Company and original owner of the Villa Vizcaya estate
• Charles Deering, executive of Deering Harvester Company, former chairman of International Harvester Company, and philanthropist
• Augustus Dickens, brother of Charles Dickens (he died penniless in Chicago)^[22]
• Roger Ebert, film critic (cremated at Graceland Cemetery)
• George Elmslie, architect
• John Jacob Esher (1823–1901), Bishop of the Evangelical Association^[31]
• Marshall Field, businessman, retailer, whose memorial was designed by Henry Bacon, with sculpture by Daniel Chester French^[32]
• Bob Fitzsimmons, Heavyweight boxing champion, born in Cornwall, UK^[33]
• Melville Fuller, Chief Justice of the United States^[34]
• Elbert H. Gary, judge, chairman of U.S. Steel
• Bruce A. Goff, architect^[25]
• Sarah E. Goode, first African-American woman to receive a United States patent
• Bruce Graham, co-architect of John Hancock building and Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower)
• Dexter Graves was an early pioneer in the city who arrived on the schooner Telegraph in the 1830s.^[35] His memorial by Lorado Taft is the statue Eternal Silence (also known as "the Dexter Graves Monument").
• Richard T. Greener, first black graduate of Harvard (1870), first black professor at the University of South Carolina (1873-1877), administrator for the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, and diplomat to Russia^[36]
• Marion Mahony Griffin, architect^[25]
• Carter Harrison, Sr., mayor of Chicago^[37]
• Carter Harrison, Jr., mayor of Chicago^[38]
• Herbert Hitchcock, US Senator from South Dakota^[39]
• William Holabird, architect^[40]
• Henry Honoré, businessman, father of Bertha Honoré Palmer, father-in-law of Potter Palmer
• William Hulbert, president of baseball's National League
• Charles L. Hutchinson, banker, philanthropist and founding president of the Art Institute of Chicago
• William Le Baron Jenney, architect, Father of the American skyscraper^[25]
• Elmer C. Jensen, "The Dean of Chicago Architects"
• Jack Johnson, first African-American heavyweight boxing champion^[41]
• William Johnson, educator who served as superintendent of Chicago Public Schools^[42]
• John and Mary Richardson Jones, husband-and-wife abolitionists and activists
• Fazlur Khan, co-architect of John Hancock building and Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower)^[25]

Getty Tomb for Carrie Eliza Getty, designed by Louis Sullivan, 1890

• William Wallace Kimball, Kimball Piano and Organ Company
• John Kinzie, Canadian pioneer, early white settler in the city of Chicago^[22]
• Cornelius Krieghoff, well-known Canadian artist
• Bryan Lathrop, businessman, philanthropist, and longtime president of the cemetery^[43]
• Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., first African American astronaut (cremated at Graceland, but not physically buried there)
• Victor F. Lawson, editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily News^[44]
• Agnes Lee, poet and translator
• Frank Lowden, Governor of Illinois^[45]
• Alexander C. McClurg, bookseller and Civil War general
• Cyrus McCormick, businessman, inventor
• Edith Rockefeller McCormick, Daughter-in-law of reaper inventor Cyrus McCormick and one of the four adult children of John D. Rockefeller^[22]
• Katherine Dexter McCormick, Daughter-in-law of reaper inventor Cyrus McCormick, MIT grad, biologist, suffragist, philanthropist
• , second wife of Col. Robert R. McCormick^[46]
• Nancy "Nettie" Fowler McCormick, businesswoman, philanthropist
• Joseph Medill, publisher, mayor of Chicago^[47]
• Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, architect^[25]
• László Moholy-Nagy, influential photographer, teacher, and founder of the New Bauhaus and Institute of Design IIT in Chicago^[25]
• Dawn Clark Netsch, comptroller of Illinois, professor & spouse of architect Walter Netsch
• Walter Netsch, architect^[25]
• Richard Nickel, photographer, architectural historian and preservationist^[25]
• Ruth Page, dancer and choreographer^[48]
• Bertha Honoré Palmer, philanthropist^[32]
• Francis W. Palmer, newspaper printer, U.S. Representative, Public Printer of the United States^[49]
• Potter Palmer, businessman^[32]
• Richard Peck, author^[50]
• Allan Pinkerton, detective^[51]
• William Henry Powell, Medal of Honor recipient
• George Pullman, inventor and railway industrialist
• Wilhelm Rapp, newspaper editor
• Hermann Raster, newspaper editor, politician and abolitionist
• John Wellborn Root, architect^[52]
• Howard Van Doren Shaw, architect^[25]
• , pioneer wholesale grocer and philanthropist.^[53] The Washington and Jane Smith Home (now Smith Village) was named in his honor.^[54]
• Louis Sullivan, architect^[25]
• Charles Wacker, businessman and philanthropist, also director of the 1893 Columbian Exposition^[55]
• Kate Warne, first female detective, Allan Pinkerton employee^[56]
• Hempstead Washburne, mayor of Chicago^[57]
• Daniel Hale Williams, African-American surgeon who performed one of the first successful operations on the pericardium^[58]
• , lumber baron.^[59] His home, built in 1885, on 2801 S. Prairie Ave. in Chicago, IL is a historical landmark^[60]

Other cemeteries in the city of Chicago[]

Graceland is one of three large mid 19th-century Chicago cemeteries which were then well outside the city limits; the other two being Rosehill (further north), and Oak Woods (on the south-side) all in the elaborated pastoral cemetery style.

In addition, directly south of Graceland across Irving Park Road are the smaller German Protestant Wunder's Cemetery, and adjacent Jewish Graceland Cemetery (divided by a fence), established in 1851. The Roman Catholic, Saint Boniface Cemetery (1863), is four blocks north of Graceland at the corner of Clark and Lawrence.

See also[]

• List of mausoleums
• United States National Cemeteries

Notes[]

Further reading[]

• Hucke, Matt and Bielski, Ursula (1999) Graveyards of Chicago: the people, history, art, and lore of Cook County Cemeteries, Lake Claremont Press, Chicago
• Kiefer, Charles D., Achilles, Rolf, and Vogel, Neil A. "Graceland Cemetery" (PDF), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, HAARGIS Database, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, June 18, 2000, accessed October 8, 2011.
• Lanctot, Barbara (1988) A Walk Through Graceland Cemetery, Chicago Architectural Foundation, Chicago, Illinois
• Vernon, Christopher (2012) Graceland Cemetery: A Design History. Amherst, MA: Library of American Landscape History and University of Massachusetts Press.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Graceland Cemetery.

• Official website
• "Graceland a Poem" by Carl Sandburg