Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago
Were it not for the somber atmosphere, Oak Woods would probably be one of Chicago's favorite parks as it is beautifully laid out and has four attractive elongated ponds.
Were it not for the somber atmosphere, Oak Woods would probably be one of Chicago's favorite parks as it is beautifully laid out and has four attractive elongated ponds. The cemetery is the final resting place of many of the South Side's most famous residents, including Olympian runner Jesse Owens, nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, civil rights leader Ida B. Wells, Mayor William Hale Thompson (perhaps Chicago's most eccentric leader), and the first black mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington Jr. One of the more striking monuments is the memorial to the overwhelming ''6,000'' Confederate prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas (on the site of the present day Illinois Institute of Technology in Bronzeville). The mayors' graves are located along the northwest shore of the largest lake (Symphony Lake). If Illinois' ugly political world interests you, you can find 'Senator' Roland Burris' ostentatious monument/grave prepared in advance, with a list of his 'achievements.'
Hours
Sun
9:00
16:30
Mon
8:00
21:00
Tue
8:00
21:00
Wed
8:00
21:00
Thu
8:00
21:00
Fri
8:00
21:00
Sat
9:00
16:30
About Oak Woods Cemetery
1035 East 67th Street, Chicago, IL, United States
+1 773-288-3800
Oak Woods Cemetery and Nearby Sights on Map
ETA Creative Arts Foundation
A community center housing one top-notch African-American theater company, which puts on an extraordinary number of plays, nearly all of them world premieres
Midway Plaisance Park
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts
This stunning new building brings professional, student, and community performing arts activities, creative arts studios, digital media production and gallery space under a single roof
The Renaissance Society
A small gallery of avant-garde painting, which will appeal greatly to aficionados, less so to casual visitors
University of Chicago Main Campus
One of the world's great universities, the University of Chicago's Gothic campus exudes academic rigor and intellectual intensity, known to students as 'the place where fun comes to die
Midway Park
A large, long grassy park, intended for the World's Fair, with grandiose plans of arched bridges over a canal connecting the lagoons of Washington and Jackson Parks, but which today mostly serves to give visitors a good view of the University of Chicago
Rockefeller Memorial Chapel
This giant Gothic church is named for the University founder, John D
Oriental Institute Museum
The University of Chicago Oriental Institute has one of the best collections of ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern archeology in the world, which is moreover free, small, very well exhibited, and basically started by Indiana Jones
Doc Films
Those zoning laws are again to 'blame' for the total absence of any movie theaters in this section of Chicago
Regenstein Library
If you are not a student and are not on a tour, you can't enter the gigantic collection of over 4