In winter, the island's snow- 

 covered meadows are popular 

 with cross-country skiers as well 

 as with bird-watchers. The 

 northern cardinal (Cardinalis 

 cardinalis), a year-round resi- 

 dent, adds scarlet touches to the 

 white landscape. 



place farther south. That did not work out because the 

 railroads, particularly the Illinois Central, which would 

 carry most of the visitors to and from the fair, balked at 

 extending their tracks. Olmsted had to make a choice 

 between Jackson Park or Washington Park, about a mile 

 to the west. He chose Jackson because the lake provided, 

 in his view, a more scenic setting than could be had 

 inland. It should be said that Olmsted was an Eastern- 

 er who did not think much of our generally treeless 

 landscape. 



Jackson Park was totally wild land. Three sand 

 ridges, beaches left over from earlier and higher stages of 

 Lake Michigan, ran from north to south through the 

 site, and between them were marshes. The only trees 

 grew on the two ridges farthest from the lake. They were 

 oaks, none more than 40 feet tall, and they all showed 

 the effects of growing in poor, sandy soil in a situation 

 where their roots were likely to be under water much of 

 the time. Olmsted thought them scraggly and unthrifty 

 looking, but he figured they were worth saving given the 

 brief span of time he had to prepare for the fair. They are 

 still green and thriving today. 



In these overdeveloped times, we would get very 



excited about a piece of natural shoreline along Lake 

 Michigan, but Olmsted thought the place looked "for- 

 bidding," and he remarked, in an article written for 

 Inland Architect magazine, on the tendency of "town gov- 

 ernments, when they find bodies of land . . . not favor- 

 able to the ends of dealers in building lots, to regard 

 them as natural reservations for pleasure grounds." No- 

 thing else about this desolate place, he thought, would 

 recommend it for a park. 



Working with Burnham and Root, Olmsted con- 

 ceived a design for Jackson Park that built on the natural 

 shape of the landscape. He would dredge the marshes 

 and heap the spoil on the old beach ridges, creating a 

 system of lagoons separated by islands and peninsulas 

 where the fair's buildings would stand. 



Burnham and Root created the buildings, working 

 in the then popular Beaux Arts style. They have been 

 criticized, then and now, for making such a conservative 

 choice, especially here in Chicago where Louis Sullivan 

 and others were, at the time, busy creating an entirely 

 new and distinctively American architectural style. 

 Some critics claim that Burnham and Root's designs set 

 American architecture back 50 years. 



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