Chicago Parks - Bickerdike Square Park Traditional Cache
Chicago Parks - Bickerdike Square Park
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
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You'll usually find lots of folks with their four-legged friends in this park, so stealth may be required during much of the day. This area does have some "blue light" street camera's 1/2 mile away so, while this is a nice neighborhood, awareness of your surroundings is always recommended in urban areas. Plenty of street parking in the area, with a baseball field, soccer field, and playground adjacent to the park.
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Park History
In 1856, early lumber mill owner and real estate speculator George Bickerdike (1806-1880) transferred a small rectangular property to the City of Chicago as parkland. Fifteen years before Chicago's Great Fire, Bickerdike and other developers were already conscious of the potential for fire to spread quickly through the city. Bickerdike Square provided some fire protection within the developer's 84-acre subdivision, a rapidly-growing area in what was then the city's northwest side. In 1899, the city formed the Special Park Commission to study Chicago's open space needs and to create playgrounds. Within a few years, the commission also began managing all of the city's existing parks.
In 1906, renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen, serving as a member of the Special Park Commission, developed improvement plans for a number of city parks. The area around Bickerdike Square had become run down, and the park was considered a "loafer's garden." Jensen's plan for Bickerdike Square called for a circular fountain as the centerpiece, flanked by two rectangular lily pools. Jensen placed shrubs and trees around the edges, and enclosed Bickerdike Square with an ornamental fence and flower vases. Work was completed within the next few years.
Bickerdike Square remained a city park until 1959, when it was transferred to the Chicago Park District along with more than 250 other properties. In the following decades, the park's lily pools were removed and the fountain was converted to a planter. Today, the site is one of 46 Chicago Park District properties used exclusively for passive recreation.
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Magnetic Bison, please bring something to write with.
Congratulations to lemmer95 on the FTF!
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