Jeffrey Baer explores some Chicago cemeteries - and the stories recorded in them

George Pullman is rumored to be buried under more steel and concrete at Graceland Cemetery so his body won't be desecrated by angry workers. Credit: Ken Carl for WTTW

One of Chicago's favorite parks was once a cemetery. In the early days of Chicago, when what is now Lincoln Park was on the outskirts of the city, the dead were buried there. It was called the City Cemetery. But soon the sanitation authorities sounded the alarm about decomposing bodies mixing with the lake water everyone drank, and most of the graves were moved to other cemeteries that were established farther from the city center and eventually connected to it by trains. One mausoleum remains in Lincoln Park, which I discuss in my new special issue of Chicago Mysteries.

Despite its lakeside location, the history of Lincoln Park Cemetery is not that unusual. In times past, many cemeteries were the only open space in crowded cities, and people often used them for picnics and pleasant walks. If you've ever visited some of the cemeteries in the Chicago area, you may be surprised at how pastoral many of them are. Not only are there elaborate monuments and many graves of deceased Chicagoans, but there are ponds, attractive trees, winding paths perfect for strolling, and even elevated areas as if you were in a park.

The City Cemetery was replaced by new cemeteries such as Graceland, Rosehill, Oak Woods, and Calvary Catholic Cemetery. Located in rural areas, they were designed as park-like cemeteries, offering city dwellers the opportunity not only to visit deceased loved ones, but also to escape the crowded urban metropolis and enjoy nature.

So if you want to have a nice walk in an unlikely place that also holds many mysteries, discover these cemeteries and a few new ones, as well as some of the famous people buried in them.

Graceland Cemetery

Frank Lloyd Wright said of Getty Louis Sullivan's tomb, 'Beyond the art of music, what could be more beautiful than a requiem? " Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Ryan Guenther

Chicago's most famous cemetery - and for good reason. This cemetery on the north side of the city was rural when it was established in 1860, and Ossian landscape architect Cole Symonds preserved the idyllic atmosphere by incorporating native flora, foreshadowing the prairie style that made the Midwest famous in both architecture and landscape design. The renovated entrance, which opened in 2023, still utilizes native plants, making the cemetery, which is also an arboretum, more inviting to nature.

But it's not just the attractive grounds that sets Graceland apart. Many of Chicago's most famous architects are buried here, and the monuments to them tend to match their style. Daniel Burnham has his own island, and Mies van der Rohe has an austere slab. A memorial to Bruce Goff, known for his use of unconventional materials, includes a piece of glass from a house he designed that was destroyed in an arson attack. Louis Sullivan, who revolutionized skyscraper architecture, had no grave monument after his death because he died nearly penniless. But his admirers later placed a boulder with one of his own ornaments on his grave. Also buried here is conservationist and photographer Richard Nickel, who died trying to salvage ornaments from one of Sullivan's buildings during its demolition. William Le Baron Jenney, who designed the first skyscraper, worked on the design of Graceland, and his ashes are scattered over his wife's grave. Buried nearby are structural engineer Fazlur Khan and architect Bruce Graham, who followed in Jenny's footsteps by scratching out the sky with the Sears Tower and Hancock Center.

Before his death, Sullivan designed Ryerson's Egyptian-inspired tomb and the highly decorative Getty tomb, of which Frank Lloyd Wright said: "Beyond the realm of music, what requiem could be more beautiful?" Marion Mahoney Griffin, who was Wright's first employee and created stunning architectural renderings of Wright's work that helped him get many commissions, has a flower from one of her drawings for him on her plaque. Solon S. Beman, who designed the town of Pullman, is also buried here. He designed a monument to his boss, George Pullman, who was supposedly buried under a lot of steel and concrete so that his body would not be desecrated by angry workers, although we don't know for sure if this is actually the case. Other Graceland business and civic leaders include Marshall Field, whose grave was designed by the team that created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; real estate and hotel magnates Potter and Bertha Palmer; and piano manufacturer William Kimball. On the grave of "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks lies a baseball glove. Another memorable sculpture is Lorado Taft's "Eternal Silence," marking the grave of Chicago's first settler, Dexter Graves. We could go on, but we have other cemeteries to visit.

Oak Woods Cemetery

Olympic gold medalist and track and field star Jesse Owens is buried at Oak Woods Cemetery. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Nick Number

This cemetery on the south side of the city is filled with black history. Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington, anti-lynching activist and journalist Ida B. Wells, gospel music pioneer Thomas A. Dorsey, and track and field star Jesse Owens are buried here. Bishop Louis Henry Ford, who delivered the eulogy at Emmett Till's funeral, is buried next to John Johnson, who published photos of the murdered boy's mangled corpse in his Jet magazine, sparking a new phase of the civil rights movement.

Ironically, in the same cemetery as many black heroes, over 4,000 Confederate soldiers are buried in a mass grave known as the Confederate Mound. They were prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas in Chicago and were moved to Oak Woods after originally being buried in what is now Lincoln Park, and in another cemetery.

There is also a Jewish section in Oak Woods where my aunt and uncle are buried.

Rosehill Cemetery

The railroad station at Rosehill Cemetery brought people from the town right to its gates, as seen in this photo taken around 1908. Credit: Wikimedia Common

Graceland has been widely publicized, but this large cemetery north of the city buries prominent Chicagoans as well as notable architectural and sculptural monuments. Its castle-like entrance gate was designed by the architect of the Chicago Water Tower, W. У. Boyington, who is also buried here along with other important architects such as George Maher. Postal trade giants such as Aaron Montgomery Ward, Richard Warren Sears and Julius Rosenwald are interred here, along with other businessmen such as Marshall Field's president John G. Shedd and hot dog head Oscar Mayer. There are Chicago mayors, Illinois governors, the vice president, and temperance activist and suffragette Frances E. Willard. There is even a section on the Civil War.

Founded in 1859, Rosehill became successful in part because of its proximity to the railroad tracks, which brought people from the crowded city to a more park-like setting. (This was also true of Graceland, Oak Woods, Mount Carmel, and the cemeteries in Forest Park.) Railroads even leased funeral cars. When the Chicago and North Western Railroad tracks were raised above sea level in 1900, the new station added an elevator to lower caskets to the ground; the elevator design survives today, although it is no longer in use.

Bohemian National Cemetery

Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak was killed by a bullet intended for Roosevelt. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Stephen Hogan

The Chicago mayor who was killed by a bullet intended for Franklin D. Roosevelt is buried in this cemetery, founded by Czech freethinkers in 1877. An influential Democrat, Mayor Anton Cermak was visiting Miami with Roosevelt in 1933 when a bullet from a would-be assassin of the president-elect hit Cermak. Cermak reportedly told Roosevelt, "I'm glad it was me and not you," and those words are carved into his Art Deco mausoleum.

Many victims of the Eastland disaster are interred here, and there is a memorial more celebratory than tragic: the Wrigley Field columbarium, where devoted Cubs fans can bury their cremated remains in an ivy-wrapped replica of Wrigley Field with bleachers, a stone home plate and a stained-glass window depicting the scoreboard.

Forest Park

The Haymarket Martyrs Memorial is part of the "radicals row" at Forest Park Cemetery. Credit: Brendan Brown for WTTW

The population of this western suburb is said to be more dead than alive, as more than 800,000 people are buried in the five major cemeteries, more than 50 times its population. As with Rosehill and other cemeteries farther from downtown, the success of the cemeteries in Forest Park, which is still the western terminus of the CTA Blue Line, has been due to rail accessibility. In addition to cemeteries established by European immigrants beginning in the late 19th century, the area is home to centuries-old mounds of the Potawatomi tribe.

Forest Home Cemetery is the resting place of four anarchists hanged as a result of the Haymarket Affair. Emma Goldman, a well-known political radical, asked to be buried next to them, which led to other revolutionaries establishing a "Radical Row" here, including the fiery Lucy Parsons. Woodlawn Cemetery has a memorial known as the Showmen's Rest, where members of the circus who died in a train crash near Hammond, Indiana, are buried. It is guarded by five stone elephants and continues to host the circus performers who have passed away. Forest Park is also home to the Waldheim Jewish Cemetery, which, according to the Forest Park Review, is the largest Jewish burial ground in the Chicago area.

Historically black cemeteries in the South Suburbs

Muddy Waters is buried at Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, and other blues musicians are also buried in the southern suburbs. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Bob Agee

A cluster of cemeteries in Chicago's south suburbs is the final resting place of an impressive number of black Chicagoans who have faced racism and discrimination in Chicago. Emmett Till and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley are buried in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, as are musicians Dinah Washington and Willie Dixon. So are Lorraine Hansberry's father, Carl, and Earl B. Dickerson, the lawyer who won a case in the U.S. Supreme Court on Carl's behalf against restrictive racial covenants that prevented blacks from moving into white neighborhoods. That fight formed the basis for Lorraine Hansberry's landmark play A Raisin in the Sun. Dickerson also helped establish Burr Oak Cemetery. In 2009, a sordid theater drama played out at the cemetery when employees were accused of digging up bodies and then reselling their plots.

In Restvale Cemetery, also located in Alsip, is the humble grave of Muddy Waters. (The Rolling Stones know exactly where it is. Lincoln Cemetery in neighboring Blue Island is home to pioneer aviator Bessie Coleman, Chicago Defender publisher Robert Sengstack Abbott, poet Gwendolyn Brooks (whose monument looks like a book), librarian Vivian Harsh, Negro League pioneer Rube Foster, and musicians Lil Hardin Armstrong and Big Bill Broonzy. Also buried here is Eugene Williams, the seventeen-year-old whose murder after he wandered into the white section of a segregated beach sparked the horrific Chicago race riots of 1919.

Mount Carmel Cemetery.

Al Capone and others associated with organized crime are buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside. Credit: Wikimedia Commons/JOE M500

This Catholic cemetery in the western suburb of Hillside is where organized religion and organized crime are buried. Numerous bishops and archbishops of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago are buried here in an angel-topped mausoleum, as well as several graves of people associated with organized crime in Chicago, most notoriously Al Capone.

Another suburban Catholic cemetery, Calvary Catholic, located on the Evanston/Chicago border near Lake Michigan, has its own circle of influential people. In addition to White Sox founder Charles Comiskey, it is home to many congressmen and mayors, including Jane Byrne.