[3] Graceland includes a naturalistic reflecting lake, surrounded by winding pathways, and its pastoral plantings have led it to become a certified arboretum of more than 2,000 trees.

[4] Thomas Barbour Bryan, a Chicago businessman, established Graceland Cemetery in 1860 with the original 80-acre (32 ha) layout designed by Swain Nelson.

[3][5] Bryan created it though a business partnership with William Butler Ogden, Sidney Sawyer, Edwin H. Sheldon, and George Peter Alexander Healy.

He collaborated with a several landscape architects to design the cemetery and fought challenges from the owners of adjacent properties who opposed his plans.

Lathrop and Simonds wanted to incorporate naturalistic settings to create picturesque views that were the foundation of the Prairie style.

Visitation became so large, that in the early 20th century its operators grew concerned that it had turned too popular as a recreation grounds, to the detriment of its character as a cemetery.

For a period, it instituted a policy in which open admission to the grounds was only permitted on Sundays and holidays, with the remaining dates seeing access limited to ticket holders.

Graceland's popularity as a pleasure grounds declined in subsequent decades, however, as public attitude moved away from seeing cemeteries as appropriate sites for leisure.

[citation needed] The edge of the pond around Daniel Burnham's burial island was once lined with broken headstones and coping transported from Lincoln Park.

The industrialist George Pullman was buried at night, in a lead-lined coffin within an elaborately reinforced steel-and-concrete vault, to prevent his body from being exhumed and desecrated by labor activists.

[18] Along with its other famous burials, the cemetery is notable for two statues by the renowned Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft, Eternal Silence for the Graves family plot and The Crusader that marks Victor Lawson's final resting place.