The Lincoln Park Gun Club was a private (later public) gun club founded in 1912 by Oscar F. Mayer, W. C. Peacock, P. K. Wrigley, Sewell Avery, and other prominent Chicagoans.
[1] John Philip Sousa and his band performed at the clubhouse's dedication.
[2] In February 1991, then Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris sued the club for allegedly polluting the lake with lead shot.
[1] The Chicago Park District, who owned the land where the gun club operated, immediately shut down the club until it could prove its activities were safe and also insisted it pay to have the lakefront dredged.
The city had paid $500,000 two years prior for an analysis of the soil and sand where the club had operated; however the study, performed by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, determined that there was no pollution present,[4] and that although there was a significant amount of lead shot and clay pigeons resting on the lake's bottom, it posed no health risk to humans or aquatic life.