When the former Fort Dearborn Reserve became part of the townsite in 1839, the plan of the area east of Michigan Avenue south of Randolph was marked "Public ground.

At various times, a post office, exposition center, armory, and even an early home field of the baseball club now known as the Chicago Cubs were built in the park.

[4] Chicago businessman Aaron Montgomery Ward ultimately fought four court battles, opposed by nearly every civic leader, to keep the park free of buildings.

In the early 20th century, Grant Park was expanded with further landfill—much of it from the excavations of the Chicago Tunnel Company—and developed with a very formal landscape design by Edward Bennett.

[11] The Chicago Cubs held their rally for their World Series Championship win on November 4, 2016 with an estimated 5 million people attending the parade and event.

With 319 acres (1.29 km2) between the downtown Chicago Loop and Lake Michigan, Grant Park offers many different attractions in its large open space.

When the park was landscaped in the early 20th century in a formal beaux arts style, tall American Elms were planted in allées and rectangular patterns.

Millennium Park features the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the Cloud Gate (aka The Bean), the Crown Fountain, the Lurie Garden, and other attractions.

[17][18] Designed by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, attractions here include summer and winter skating rinks, an extensive playground, climbing walls, tennis and pickleball courts, and an activities building, which were redeveloped from 2012 to 2015.

[20] In a rococo wedding cake style, the fountain was dedicated in 1927 as a gift to the city from Kate Sturges Buckingham in memory of her brother Clarence.

A narrow isthmus along Solidarity Drive dominated by neoclassical sculptures of Kościuszko, Havliček and Nicolaus Copernicus connects to Northerly Island where the planetarium is located to the east of the Museum Campus situated on the mainland.

Wells Drive contain gardens, fountains, and artwork, including a pair of large bronze warrior statues, The Bowman and The Spearman that are positioned like gatekeepers to the park.

Millennium Park houses the Lurie Garden, known for its display of tall grass flowers, particularly lavender, and a decorative post-modern water stream.

To the northeast in Daley Park, at 375 East Randolph Drive, is the Richard & Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Garden, marked by two huge doric columns from the demolished Chicago Federal Building and a wrought-iron pergola.

The garden contains numerous walkways lined with planters and is one of several similar spaces created nationwide by R. A. Bloch Cancer Foundation.

While unique artwork has long been a tradition of Chicago's parks, South President's Court had the added benefit of showcasing "in house" art as its first newsworthy collection, entitled "Artist and Automobiles."

The collection, organized by the Public Art Program and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, consisted of sculptures composed entirely of parts found on old automobiles.

[27] Much of the southern end of Grant Park is given over to Hutchinson Field, an open space for large events, with a dozen baseball or softball diamonds named for financier and long-time Art Institute President, Charles L.

[28] A section of the Chicago Lakefront Trail, an 18-mile multi-use path along the city's Lake Michigan shoreline, runs through the park's eastern edge.

[31] The Grant Park Skate Plaza, designed by Chicago Landscape Architects Altamanu, was opened on December 6, 2014.

The Plaza is located in the southwest corner of the park near the former site of the 1893 Central Station and includes limestone pieces from the former railroad terminal.

The statue was cast in 1908 and was displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at the 1915 San Francisco World's Fair, prior to being installed in the park in 1926.

Agora (from Greek, for urban meeting place) is an installation of 106 headless, armless sculptures designed by the Polish artist Magdalena Abakanowicz in southwestern Grant Park near Roosevelt Road.

[39] A bronze statue by Carlo ("Charles", "Carl") Brioschi[40] was displayed on a monumental pedestal at the southern end of Grant Park.

In conjunction with the fair, Chicago's Italian-American community raised funds and donated the statue of the Genoese navigator and explorer, Christopher Columbus.

[43] Logan was a United States major general, who had resigned his congressional seat to serve in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.

The monument mound, with a statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Alexander Phimister Proctor, was initially intended as a burial site for Logan, but his family declined to relocate the general's grave.