Don't let the macabre connotations scare you. Chicago, Illinois, has cemeteries that are as pretty as parks and are filled with the city's lively political and cultural history. The Windy City's graveyards are home to such luminaries as Al Capone, Clarence Darrow, Muddy Waters and Mayor Harold Washington. The sites house a diverse array of monuments, mausoleums and crypts that showcase the city's rich architectural and artistic movements, as well as anything constructed by Frank Lloyd Wright or Louis Sullivan.
Graceland Cemetery
Hosted by the Chicago Architecture Foundation, this walking tour of Graceland Cemetery features monuments designed by such noted sculptors and architects as Daniel Chester French, Lorado Taft and Louis Sullivan, who is also buried here. Graceland is the resting place of many famous figures from Chicago history, including many of the planners of the Columbian Exposition (featured in Erik Larson's "Devil in The White City"). Be sure to visit Burnham Island, the plot of the Daniel Burnham family.
Note: No tours have been scheduled yet for 2010. Please consult the Architecture.org website for updates.
Graceland Cemetery
Corner of Clark St. and Irving Park Rd.
Chicago, IL 60613
(312) 922-3432 ext. 226
architecture.org/tour_view.aspx?TourID=27
Matinee Supernatural Tour
For the more supernaturally inclined, noted paranormal researcher Richard T. Crowe conducts bus tours of Chicago cemeteries every weekend in October. Highlights include an Indian burial ground and Resurrection Cemetery, which is the resting place of the "Resurrection Mary" ghost. Accordingly to legend, a woman named Mary was a victim of a hit-and-run accident in the 1930s. Her grieving parents buried her at Resurrection Cemetery and, over the years, there have been sightings of her ghost in and around the cemetery.
Matinee Supernatural Tour
(Please call in advance for pick-up location)
Chicago, IL 60613
(800) 719-1365
cemeterytours.net/tours/tourDetail.cfm?tour_id=11403
Oak Woods Cemetery
The Oak Woods Cemetery on Chicago's South Side offers self-guided walking tours of its grounds. The graveyard includes such African-American luminaries as Olympic athlete Jesse Owens and Mayor Harold Washington, as well as physicist Enrico Fermi and "Big Bill" Thompson. The architecturally rich grounds include the Tower of Memories, a six-story mausoleum of stained glass, marble and granite as well as a two-acre federally commissioned memorial for Confederate POWs from the Civil War. Oak Woods also has four small lakes. The shoreline of Symphony Lake is the most prestigious section of the cemetery, with three mayors buried there. Along the southern perimeter is a Jewish cemetery that was once under separate management but is now part of Oak Woods.
Oak Woods Cemetery
1035 E. 67th St.
Chicago, IL 60637-4797
(773) 288-3800
graveyards.com/IL/Cook/oakwoods/
