Marquette Park

Located within the Chicago Lawn community area, the neighborhood of Marquette Park is home to one of Chicago's largest parks, a 300 acre plot of land that has helped shape the identity of the area since it was constructed. The park, also named Marquette Park, was designed by famed landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers in 1905, and the original plans "called for a golf course on two islands surrounded by naturalistic lagoons, indoor and outdoor gymnasiums, swimming and wading pools, a children's playground, formal gardens, and a concert grove." Constructing the park took much longer than expected, and several features of the original plan were dropped, but in 1913 the golf course opened, and "by 1917, the park included playing fields, a children's playground, tennis courts, propagating houses for the nursery, and a large, classically-designed golf shelter."

Now, about a century after it was created, the park still "is one of the jewels of the Chicago Park District." It has many features that would make most other parks jealous, including a golf course, a driving range, a putting green, picnic shelters, and sports fields, all surrounded by a winding two mile path for walking, running, and biking. Also included: "an occasional, tantalizing whiff of Oreos," which are made at the Nabisco factory, which is just south of the park.