CHICAGO 



1312 



CHICAGO 



Local Transportation. In so widely-scattered 

 a city with its business so centralized, trans- 

 portation is a big problem, and one which has 

 been -met in three ways. First, there are the 

 electric street railways, which have over 1,000 

 miles of track, and connect all parts of the 

 city. Authorities do not hesitate to say that 

 no city in the United States possesses a better 

 street railway system. In the management of 

 the surface lines the city is a partner, receiv- 

 ing fifty-five per cent of the net profits. In 

 1915 this sum amounted to over $20,000,000, 

 the accumulation of years, and it is being held 

 to finance at no distant day a system of sub- 

 way transportation. 



There are four elevated roads, two to the 

 West Side, one to the South and one to the 

 North. In the downtown district these form 

 a "loop" about the main business section, en- 

 closing the streets from Lake to Van Buren 

 and from Wabash to Wells Street, and this 

 it is which gives the popular name "Loop" 

 district to this section. The Loop encircles the 

 great retail and wholesale stores. The ele- 

 vated roads are clean, safe and rapid. 



In addition to these purely local lines, most 

 of the great railways entering the city have 

 suburban divisions. In all, it is estimated that 

 all the lines collect daily an average of almost 

 1,500,000 fares. 



The Park System. Chicago has two popular 

 names; it is called the Windy City and the 

 Garden City, the latter name having been 

 given to it because of its parks. To-day it is 

 very far from being the first city of the country 

 in its proportion of park area to population, 

 but it has an unusually well-planned system 

 of beautiful parks, in total area over 4,600 

 acres. Of the two score, or thereabouts, of 

 parks, seven are of considerable extent. Lin- 

 coln Park, on the North Side, has an area of 

 317 acres, but is being largely added to by 

 the creation of new land on the lake shore 

 at its northern limit. This is the favorite park 

 of the children, who are attracted not so much 

 by the beautiful, shaded drives, the conserva- 

 tory or the lagoon, as by the zoological garden. 

 About 1,700 animals, one of the finest col- 

 lections in the country, are housed here, some 

 of them in buildings which are models in 

 their way. Most noteworthy of the statues 

 with which Lincoln Park is liberally adorned 

 is the equestrian statue of Grant and the 

 famous Lincoln by Saint Gaudens. 



On the South Side the most important parks 

 are Jackson, with 542 acres, and Washington, 



with 371 acres. The former, stretching for one 

 and one-third miles along the lake, is the old 

 site of the World's Columbian Exposition, of 

 which a few buildings have been preserved as 

 memorials. Beautiful drives, lagoons for boat- 

 ing, a rose garden and excellent golf and tennis 

 facilities have made this one of the city's 

 most popular parks. Housed in the former 

 Fine Arts Building of the Exposition is the 

 Field Columbian Museum, a valuable collec- 

 tion in the fields of natural history and eth- 

 nology, but this institution by 1920 is to have 

 a magnificent permanent home in Grant Park 

 in the downtown district. A mile west of Jack- 

 son Park, and connected with it by the boule- 

 vard remembered as the Midway Plaisance 

 of the World's Fair, is Washington Park, espe- 

 cially noted for its effective landscape garden- 

 ing. The third large park on the South Side 

 is Marquette, one of the newer playgrounds, 

 with an area of 322 acres, much frequented by 

 reason of its long golf course. Downtown, 

 between Michigan Avenue and the lake, is a 

 more recently laid out area known as Grant 

 Park, once famous as Lake Front Park. It is 

 in this park that most out-of-door exhibitions, 

 such as the aviation meets, are held. 



The West Side parks are Humboldt, 205 

 acres; Garfield, 187 acres, noted for its con- 

 servatory, the largest in the country; and 

 Douglas, 182 acres. Connecting the various 

 parks is a splendid system of boulevards, aggre- 

 gating over seventy miles and forming one of 

 the finest drives in America. Most of these 

 are lined with beautiful homes and contain 

 central grass plots decorated with trees and 

 flowers. The people of Chicago also have the 

 benefit of the natural parks or woodland 

 regions which have been purchased and opened 

 up by the Cook County forest reserve board. 

 These lie in a semi-circle about the city, and 

 are all easy of access. 



Playgrounds and Beaches. One of the things 

 of which Chicago has most reason to be proud 

 is its system of small parks. These are so 

 located as to be accessible to the people who 

 need them most those in the thickly-settled 

 districts; and they contain practically all that 

 visitors of any age can demand for pleasure or 

 relaxation. There are gymnasiums with trained 

 instructors, swimming pools, fully-equipped 

 playgrounds for children of various ages, sand 

 piles, wading pools, skating ponds, reading 

 rooms and club rooms, all free. In the sum- 

 mer season thousands seek the bathing beaches 

 which may be found at intervals along the 





