1.
National Register of Historic Places
–
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Collegiate Gothic
–
A form of historicist architecture, it took its inspiration from English Tudor and Gothic buildings. It is for us, as part of our duty as our highest privilege to act, Gothic Revival architecture was used for American college buildings as early as 1829, when Old Kenyon was completed on the campus of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Alexander Jackson Daviss University Hall, on New York Universitys Washington Square campus, was another early example, richard Bonds church-like library for Harvard College, Gore Hall, became the model for other library buildings. James Renwick, Jr. s Free Academy Building, for what is today City College of New York, inspired by Londons Hampton Court Palace, Swedish-born Charles Ulricson designed Old Main at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Richards, architect, Harvard College – Memorial Hall, William Robert Ware and Henry Van Brunt, architects, and Cornell University – Sage Hall, Charles Babcock, architect. In 1871, English architect William Burges designed a row of vigorous French Gothic-inspired buildings for Trinity College – Seabury Hall, Northam Tower, Jarvis Hall – in Hartford, Connecticut. Tastes became more conservative in the 1880s, and collegiate architecture soon after came to prefer a more scholarly, inspired by the architecture of Oxford and Cambridge universities, and historicists but not literal copyists, Cope & Stewardson were highly influential in establishing the Collegiate Gothic style. In 1901, the firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge created a plan for a Collegiate Gothic campus for the fledgling University of Chicago. Some of their works, such as the Mitchell Tower, were copies of historic buildings. George Browne Post designed the City College of New Yorks new campus at Hamilton Heights, Manhattan, the style was experienced up-close by a wide audience at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. The Worlds Fair and 1904 Olympic Games were held on the completed campus of Washington University. The movement gained momentum when Charles Donagh Maginnis designed Gasson Hall at Boston College in 1908. Ralph Adams Cram designed one of the most poetic collections of Collegiate Gothic buildings for the Princeton University Graduate College, james Gamble Rogerss extensive work at Yale University, beginning in 1917, took historicist fantasy to an extreme. He was criticized by the growing Modernist movement, following McMaster Universitys decision to relocate to Hamilton, Ontario, Canadian architect William Lyon Somerville designed its new campus in the style. These buildings are among the most remarkable yet built in America and they are picturesque also, even dramatic, they are altogether wonderful in mass and in composition. If they are not a constant inspiration to those who dwell within their walls or pass through their quads or their vaulted archways, it is not their fault, the tower has been severely criticized as an archaeological abstraction reared to commemorate contemporary American heroism. The criticism seems just to me, though only in a measure, American heroism harks back to English heroism, the blood shed before Manila and on San Juan Hill was the same blood that flowed at Bosworth Field, Flodden, and the Boyne. Therefore the British base of the design is indispensable, for such were the racial foundations, Collegiate Gothic complexes were most often horizontal compositions, save for a single tower or towers serving as an exclamation
3.
University of Chicago
–
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It holds top-ten positions in national and international rankings and measures. The university currently enrolls approximately 5,700 students in the College, Chicagos physics department helped develop the worlds first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction beneath the viewing stands of universitys Stagg Field. The university is home to the University of Chicago Press. With an estimated date of 2020, the Barack Obama Presidential Center will be housed at the university. Both Harper and future president Robert Maynard Hutchins advocated for Chicagos curriculum to be based upon theoretical and perennial issues rather than on applied sciences, the University of Chicago has many prominent alumni. 92 Nobel laureates have been affiliated with the university as professors, students, faculty, or staff, similarly,34 faculty members and 16 alumni have been awarded the MacArthur “Genius Grant”. Rockefeller on land donated by Marshall Field, while the Rockefeller donation provided money for academic operations and long-term endowment, it was stipulated that such money could not be used for buildings. The original physical campus was financed by donations from wealthy Chicagoans like Silas B, Cobb who provided the funds for the campus first building, Cobb Lecture Hall, and matched Marshall Fields pledge of $100,000. Organized as an independent institution legally, it replaced the first Baptist university of the same name, william Rainey Harper became the modern universitys first president on July 1,1891, and the university opened for classes on October 1,1892. The business school was founded thereafter in 1898, and the law school was founded in 1902, Harper died in 1906, and was replaced by a succession of three presidents whose tenures lasted until 1929. During this period, the Oriental Institute was founded to support, in 1896, the university affiliated with Shimer College in Mount Carroll, Illinois. The agreement provided that either party could terminate the affiliation on proper notice, several University of Chicago professors disliked the program, as it involved uncompensated additional labor on their part, and they believed it cheapened the academic reputation of the university. The program passed into history by 1910, in 1929, the universitys fifth president, Robert Maynard Hutchins, took office, the university underwent many changes during his 24-year tenure. In 1933, Hutchins proposed a plan to merge the University of Chicago. During his term, the University of Chicago Hospitals finished construction, also, the Committee on Social Thought, an institution distinctive of the university, was created. Money that had been raised during the 1920s and financial backing from the Rockefeller Foundation helped the school to survive through the Great Depression, during World War II, the university made important contributions to the Manhattan Project. The university was the site of the first isolation of plutonium and of the creation of the first artificial, in the early 1950s, student applications declined as a result of increasing crime and poverty in the Hyde Park neighborhood
4.
Chicago
–
Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
5.
Frederick Law Olmsted
–
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, in Washington, D. C. he worked on the landscape surrounding the United States Capitol building. The quality of Olmsteds landscape architecture was recognized by his contemporaries and his work, especially in Central Park in New York City, set a standard of excellence that continues to influence landscape architecture in the United States. Olmsted was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 26,1822 and his father, John Olmsted, was a prosperous merchant who took a lively interest in nature, people, and places, Frederick Law and his younger brother, John Hull, also showed this interest. His mother, Charlotte Law Olmsted, died before his fourth birthday and his father remarried in 1827 to Mary Ann Bull, who shared her husbands strong love of nature and had perhaps a more cultivated taste. When the young Olmsted was almost ready to enter Yale College, after working as an apprentice seaman, merchant, and journalist, Olmsted settled on a 125-acre farm in January 1848 on the south shore of Staten Island NY, which his father helped him acquire. This farm, originally named the Akerly Homestead, was renamed Tosomock Farm by Olmsted and it was later renamed The Woods of Arden by owner Erastus Wiman. On June 13,1859, Olmsted married Mary Cleveland Olmsted, Daniel Fawcett Tiemann, the mayor of New York, officiated the wedding. He adopted her three children, John Charles Olmsted, Charlotte Olmsted and Owen Olmsted, Frederick and Mary had two children together who survived infancy, a daughter, Marion and a son Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. Their first child, John Theodore Olmsted, was born on June 13,1860, Olmsted had a significant career in journalism. In 1850 he traveled to England to visit gardens, where he was greatly impressed by Joseph Paxtons Birkenhead Park. He subsequently wrote and published Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England in 1852 and this supported his getting additional work. Interested in the economy, he was commissioned by the New York Daily Times to embark on an extensive research journey through the American South. His dispatches to the Times were collected into three volumes which remain vivid first-person social documents of the pre-war South. A one-volume abridgment, Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom, was published during the first six months of the American Civil War at the suggestion of Olmsteds English publisher. To this he wrote a new introduction in which he stated explicitly his views on the effect of slavery on the economy and my own observation of the real condition of the people of our Slave States, gave me. He argued that slavery had made the slave states inefficient and backward both economically and socially, the citizens of the cotton States, as a whole, are poor. They work little, and that little, badly, they earn little, they sell little, they buy little and their destitution is not material only, it is intellectual and it is moral
6.
Lorado Taft
–
Lorado Zadoc Taft was an American sculptor, writer and educator. Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois, in 1860 and died in his studio in Chicago in 1936. Taft was the father of US Representative Emily Taft Douglas, father-in-law to her husband, US Senator Paul Douglas, Taft was born in Elmwood, Illinois. His father was a professor of geology at the Illinois Industrial University, after being homeschooled by his parents, Taft earned his bachelors degree and masters degree at Illinois Industrial University. His record there was outstanding, he was cited as top man in his studio, upon returning to the United States in 1886, Taft settled in Chicago. He taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago until 1929, in addition to work in clay and plaster, Taft taught his students marble carving, and had them work on group projects. He also lectured at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, Taft asked if he could employ some of his female students as assistants for the Horticultural Building. Burnham responded, Hire anyone, even white rabbits if theyll do the work, from that arose a group of talented women sculptors known as the White Rabbits, Enid Yandell, Carol Brooks MacNeil, Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Janet Scudder, Julia Bracken and Ellen Rankin Copp. Later, another student, Frances Loring, noted that Taft used his students talents to further his own career. In general, history has given Taft credit for helping to advance the status of women as sculptors, Tafts frequent lecture tours for the Chautauqua gave him a broad, popular celebrity status. In some settings, Taft is better known for his writings than for his sculpture, in 1903, Taft published The History of American Sculpture, the first survey of the subject. The revised 1925 version was to remain the reference on the subject until Wayne Craven published Sculpture in America in 1968. In 1921, Taft published Modern Tendencies in Sculpture, a compilation of his lectures given at the Art Institute of Chicago, in 1898, Taft was a founding member of the Eagles Nest Art Colony in the small town of Oregon, Illinois. Taft designed the Columbus Fountain at Union Station in Washington, D. C. in collaboration with Daniel Burnham, commission of Fine Arts from 1925 to 1929, and was an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects. His papers reside in collections at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, the University of Illinois, and he maintained his connections with his alma mater throughout his life. In 1929, he dedicated his sculpture Alma Mater on the University of Illinois campus, two figures behind her on either side represent the university’s motto, Learning and Labor. Taft was active until the end of his life, the week before he died, he attended the Quincy, Illinois, dedication ceremonies for his sculpture celebrating the Lincoln-Douglas debates. He received numerous awards, prizes, and honorary degrees, in 1965, his Chicago workplace at 6016 Ingleside Avenue was designated a National Historic Landmark as Lorado Taft Midway Studios
7.
Parks in Chicago
–
Parks in Chicago include open spaces and facilities, developed and managed by the Chicago Park District. The City of Chicago devotes 8. 5% of its total acreage to parkland. Since the 1830s, the motto of Chicago has been Urbs in horto. Notable architects, artists and landscape architects have contributed to the 570 parks, including Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jens Jensen, Frank Gehry, in 1836, a year before Chicago was incorporated, the Board of Canal Commissioners held public auctions for the citys first lots. Foresighted citizens, who wanted the Lake Michigan lakefront kept as open space. The land east of Michigan Avenue between Madison Street and Park Row was designated Public Ground—A Common to Remain Forever Open, Clear and Free of Any Buildings, or Other Obstruction and this lot was soon expanded to Randolph Street, and it was officially named Lake Park in 1847. It was renamed Grant Park in 1901, a second parcel, west of Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Washington Streets, was designated Dearborn Park. As Chicago grew, demand increased for public spaces, but the Chicago Common Council did little to address these requests, instead, real estate investors realized that small public squares could increase the value of their property. In 1842, Washington Square Park became the first of these ventures, similar projects were completed with Goudy Square Park in 1847 and Union Park in 1853. Although the Cook County Court agreed to allocate a major park on the South Side in 1857, Chicagos second large-scale allocation of parkland came in 1860, when a large section of the City Cemetery was re-designated as a park. This was due to concerns led by John Henry Rauch about the public health impact of having a large cemetery on the lake. This new park was also named Lake Park, however, due to confusion over its name, it was renamed to Lincoln Park in 1865, slowly, all of the graves were moved from the cemetery, greatly expanding the park. Haussmanns renovation of Paris and New Yorks Greensward Plan in the 1850s and 1860s turned new attention to the role that parks can play in urban development. William Butler Ogden, the first mayor of Chicago, advocated for a bill to create a large park on the South Side. Although initially rejected when proposed in 1868, the Illinois legislature accepted this plan in 1869, the objective was to create a system of parks and boulevards that would form a circle around Chicago. The Chicago Park District manages 220 facilities in 570 parks covering more than 7,600 acres of land throughout the city, the height of these events are during the summer months at the height of the tourist season while children are out of school for summer recess. The dominant theme in many of Chicagos park fieldhouses are variants of either Georgian or Classical Revival architecture, clarence Hatzfeld, who designed many of the homes in Chicagos landmark Villa District is noted as the most prolific architect of Chicago park fieldhouses. Similar to other areas of Chicagos built environment, a number of structures in Chicagos Parks are of exceptional architectural value
8.
Washington Park (Chicago park)
–
It was named for President George Washington in 1880. Washington Park is the largest of four Chicago Park District parks named after persons surnamed Washington, located in the park is the DuSable Museum of African American History. This park was the site of the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic swimming venue for Chicagos bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Washington Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 20,2004, Washington Park was conceived by Paul Cornell, a Chicago real estate magnate who had founded the adjoining town of Hyde Park. Cornell had lobbied the Illinois General Assembly to establish the South Park Commission, originally called South Park, the property was composed of eastern and western divisions, now bearing the names Jackson and Washington Parks and the Midway Plaisance. Cornell hired Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner, Calvert Vaux and their blueprints were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. When Olmsted first examined the property, he saw a field filled with bare trees and his plan for the park called for sheep to graze as a means of keeping the grass short. Cornell convinced Olmsted to include sporting areas, although Olmsted wanted a natural feel to the park. The Western division was renamed Washington Park in 1881, Olmsted designed the park to have two broad boulevards cutting through it, making it part of Chicagos boulevard system. From Washington Park, one can take the Midway east to Jackson Park, Garfield Boulevard west to Chicago Midway International Airport, horace William Shaler Cleveland executed the plans within the limitations of the financial setbacks from the fire and the 1873 depression. Olmsteds vision for Washington Park was generally realized, however, since spending for the park was diverted after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. The loss of financial backing and difficulty in levying taxes after the fire meant that a park could not be built on the property. From 1897 until the 1930s the park housed an impressive conservatory and ornate sunken garden designed by D. H. Burnham & Co. at 56th Street and Cottage Grove. The Washington Park Conservatory, like those of city parks such as Humboldt. This left Lincoln Park and Garfield Park as Chicagos main Conservatories, one of the earliest improvements was the South Open Green, a pastoral meadow with grazing sheep, also used as a ball field. Architect Daniel H. Burnhams firm designed the 1880 limestone round stables, the 1881 refectory, the lily pond was a particularly enticing attraction because few had seen such a site. Today, the building houses DuSable Museum of African American History. The park has retained its environmental appeal with continuing support of the Burnham Plan which supported the maintenance of a park system
9.
Hyde Park, Chicago
–
Hyde Park is a neighborhood and community area on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan seven miles south of the Chicago Loop, Hyde Parks official boundaries are 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard on the north, the Midway Plaisance on the south, Washington Park on the west, and Lake Michigan on the east. The area encompassing Hyde Park and the part of Kenwood is sometimes referred to as Hyde Park-Kenwood. Hyde Park hosts the University of Chicago, the Museum of Science and Industry, in the early 21st century, Hyde Park received national attention for its association with U. S. President Barack Obama. The land was located seven miles south of Downtown Chicago in a area that enjoyed weather tempered by the lake – cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. It was conveniently located near the Illinois Central Railroad, which had constructed two years earlier. Cornell successfully negotiated land in exchange for a station at 53rd Street. Hyde Park quickly became a suburban retreat for affluent Chicagoans who wanted to escape the noise. In 1857, the Hyde Park House, an hotel, was built on the shore of Lake Michigan near the 53rd Street railroad station. For two decades, the Hyde Park House served as a point of Hyde Park social life. During this period, it was visited or lived in by many prominent guests, including Mary Todd Lincoln, the Hyde Park House burned down in an 1879 fire. The Sisson Hotel was built on the site in 1918 and was converted into a condominium building. In 1861, Hyde Park was incorporated as an independent township and its boundaries were Pershing Road on the north, 138th Street on the south, State Street on the west, and Lake Michigan and the Indiana state line on the east. The territory of the township encompassed most of what is now the South Side of Chicago, Hyde Park Township remained independent of Chicago until it was annexed to the city in 1889. In 1891, the University of Chicago was established in Hyde Park through the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller, the University of Chicago eventually grew into one of the worlds most prestigious universities, and is now associated with eighty-nine Nobel Prize laureates. In 1893, Hyde Park hosted the Worlds Columbian Exposition, however, since most of the structures built for the fair were temporary, it left few direct traces in the neighborhood. The only major structure from the fair that is standing today is Charles Atwoods Palace of Fine Arts. In the early decades of the century, many upscale hotels were built in Hyde Park
10.
Chicago Loop
–
The Loop is the central business district of Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the citys 77 designated community areas, the Loop is home to Chicagos commercial core, City Hall, and the seat of Cook County. In the late century, cable car turnarounds and prominent elevated railway encircled the area. In what is now the Loop, on the bank of the Chicago River, near todays Michigan Avenue Bridge. It was the first settlement in the sponsored by the United States. Other research has concluded that the Loop was not used as a proper noun until after the 1895–97 construction of the Union elevated railway loop, Loop architecture has been dominated by skyscrapers and high-rises since early in its history. Some of the buildings in this district were instrumental in the development of towers. Chicagos street numbering system – dividing addresses into North, South, East, Chicago is still the nations rail transportation hub and passenger lines once reached seven Loop-area stations by the 1890s. Transfers from one to the other was a business for taxi drivers until the long-distance lines gave way to Amtrak in the 1970s with the majority of trains concentrated at Chicago Union Station. This area abounds in shopping opportunities, including the Loop Retail Historic District and it includes Chicagos former Marshall Fields department store location in the Marshall Field and Company Building, the original Sullivan Center Carson Pirie Scott store location. Chicagos Downtown Theatre District is also found within this area, along with numerous restaurants, Chicago has a famous skyline which features many of the tallest buildings in the world as well as the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Chicagos skyline is spaced out throughout the area, giving it a graceful beautiful appearance. Chicagos third tallest building, the Aon Center, is located just south of Illinois Center, the complex is at the east end of the Loop, east of Michigan Avenue. Two Prudential Plaza is also located here, just to the west of the Aon Center, the Loop contains a wealth of outdoor sculpture, including works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Henry Moore, Marc Chagall, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Alexander Calder, and Jean Dubuffet. Chicagos waterfront, which is almost exclusively recreational beach and park areas from north to south, the area also hosts the annual music festival Lollapalooza which features popular alternative rock, heavy metal, EDM, hop hop and punk rock artists. Trips down the Chicago River, including tours, by commercial boat operators are great favorites with both locals and tourists alike. The Loop is the seat of Chicagos government and it is also the government seat of Cook County, Illinois and houses an office for the governor of the State of Illinois. The century old City Hall/County Building houses the chambers of the Mayor, City Council, across the street, the Richard J. Daley Center accommodates a famous Picasso sculpture and the state law courts
11.
Lake Michigan
–
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America and the only one located entirely within the United States. The other four Great Lakes are shared by the U. S. and it is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Lake Michigan is shared, from west to east, by the U. S. states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, ports along its shores include Chicago, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Gary, Indiana, and Benton Harbor, Michigan. The word Michigan originally referred to the lake itself, and is believed to come from the Ojibwa word mishigami meaning great water, some of the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region were the Hopewell Indians. Their culture declined after 800 AD, and for the few hundred years. The French explorer Jean Nicolet is believed to have been the first European to reach Lake Michigan, in the earliest European maps of the region, the name of Lake Illinois has been found in addition to that of Michigan, named for the Illinois Confederation of tribes. Lake Michigan is joined via the narrow, open-water Straits of Mackinac with Lake Huron, the Straits of Mackinac were an important Native American and fur trade route. The eastern end of the Straits was controlled by Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, French coureurs des bois and voyageurs established small ports and trading communities, such as Green Bay, on the lake during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the 19th century, Lake Michigan played a role in the development of Chicago. The first person to reach the bottom of Lake Michigan was J. Val Klump. Klump reached the bottom via submersible as part of a 1985 research expedition, in 2007, a row of stones paralleling an ancient shoreline was discovered by Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College. This formation lies 40 feet below the surface of the lake, One of the stones is said to have a carving resembling a mastodon. So far the formation has not been authenticated, Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes wholly within the borders of the United States, the others are shared with Canada. It lies in the known as the American Midwest. Lake Michigan has an area of 22,404 sq. mi, making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area. It is the half of Lake Michigan–Huron, which is the largest body of fresh water in the world. It is 307 miles long by 118 miles wide with a shoreline 1,640 miles long, the lakes average depth is 46 fathoms 3 feet, while its greatest depth is 153 fathoms 5 feet. It contains a volume of 1,180 cubic miles of water, Green Bay in the northwest is its largest bay
12.
Amusement park
–
An amusement park or theme park is a group of entertainment attractions, rides, and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people. Theme parks, a type of amusement park, are usually much more intricately themed to a certain subject or group of subjects than normal amusement parks. Amusement parks evolved from European fairs and pleasure gardens, which were created for peoples recreation, Worlds fairs and expositions were another influence on the development of the amusement park industry. In common language, the theme park and amusement park are often synonymous. However, a park can be regarded as a distinct style of amusement park. A theme park has landscaping, buildings, and attractions that are based on one or more specific themes or stories. The amusement park evolved from three earlier traditions, the oldest being the periodic fair of the Middle Ages - one of the earliest was the Bartholomew Fair in England, the worlds oldest amusement park appeared in the Continent. Bakken at Klampenborg, north of Copenhagen, Denmark, opened in 1583, a wave of innovation in the 1860s and 1870s created mechanical rides, such as the steam-powered carousel, and its derivatives. This inaugurated the era of the modern funfair ride, as the classes were increasingly able to spend their surplus wages on entertainment. The second influence was the pleasure garden, one of the earliest gardens was the Vauxhall Gardens, founded in 1661 in London. By the late 18th century, the site had a fee for its many attractions. It regularly drew crowds, with its paths being noted for romantic assignations, tightrope walkers, hot air balloon ascents, concerts. Although the gardens were designed for the elites, they soon became places of great social diversity. Public firework displays were put on at Marylebone Gardens, and Cremorne Gardens offered music, dancing, prater in Vienna, Austria, was opened in 1766. The concept of a park for amusement was further developed with the beginning of the worlds fairs. The first World fair began in 1851 with the construction of the landmark Crystal Palace in London, the purpose of the exposition was to celebrate the industrial achievement of the nations of the world and it was designed to educate and entertain the visitors. American cities and business saw the worlds fair as a way of demonstrating economic. The Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Illinois was an precursor to the modern amusement park
.jpg)
