Daniel Burnham Park

Burnham Park totals 653.63 acres and sits on Chicago’s Lakefront just south of Grant Park. The park was named for Chicago's famous architect and planner Daniel H. Burnham, who envisioned a south lakefront park with a series of manmade islands, linear boating harbor, beaches, meadows, and playfields, as published in his seminal The Plan of Chicago of 1909.

In the mid-1890s, Chicago's famous architect and planner Daniel H. Burnham began sketching a magnificent park and boulevard system that would link Jackson Park with downtown. As Chief of Construction for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, Burnham (1846- 1912) had transformed sandy, wind-swept, Jackson Park into the glistening White City. After the fair, Burnham began imagining a more beautiful, orderly, and functional Chicago. Burnham's vision, including a south lakefront park with a series of manmade islands, linear boating harbor, beaches, meadows, and play fields, was published in his seminal 1909 Plan of Chicago. The Plan included lakefront parkland and five islands off the lakeshore. Unfortunately, the five islands were not realized only Island No. 1 was constructed, now known as Northerly Island.