Bessemer Park

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Bessemer Park was created in 1904 by The South Park Commission as part of a neighborhood park system. Living conditions for immigrants arriving in Chicago in search of the "American dream" had become intolerable due to overcrowded housing condition. Most people didn't own cars. Other parks were too far away. Park superintendent J. Frank Foster conceived a new type of parkland for population dense areas. These new parks providing "breathing spaces," and a host of other amenities from public bathing to organized recreation. Nationally renowned landscape architects the Olmsted Brothers and architects Daniel H. Burnham and Co. designed the entire park system.

Bessemer Park was named for Sir Henry Bessemer (1813-1898), an Englishman who perfected the process of making steel which revolutionizing the steel industry worldwide. The name is especially appropriate because Chicago's most productive steel mill The U.S. Southworks was located just a mile away. Today Bessemer Park boast a gated and beautifully landscaped Nature Garden planted with a wide variety of native flowering trees, shrubs and forbs.