Paul Cornell (August 5, 1822 – March 3, 1904) was an American lawyer and Chicago real estate speculator who founded the Hyde Park Township that included most of what are now known as the south and far southeast sides of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States.

[1] A sympathetic lawyer provided him with both a loan and a job at the law office of Skinner and Hoyne, where he met Senator Stephen Douglas.

He had many strong local connections, being related to founders of Northwestern University (Evans and Orrington Lunt) and to George Kimbark of Riverside Improvement Company.

[10] It was common for development companies to locate hotels near rail depots to introduce visitors to new suburbs.

He selected the name Hyde Park to associate the area with the elite high class neighborhoods of New York and London.

[7] The hotel became the focal point of the community and drew affluent guests with leisure time and discretionary income.

[15] He maintained the character of Hyde Park, which was intended to be an elite suburb bordering Chicago, by selling only large lots that the affluent could afford.

His plan for a cornerstone institution to rival Evanston's Northwestern University was at first thwarted by the decision to establish a theological seminary on the north side,[7] but would come to fruition with the foundation of the University of Chicago through the philanthropy of John D. Rockefeller and Marshall Field in 1890.

[19] Cornell based his arguments on New York City's Central Park, which had substantially raised surrounding real estate values.

[5][20] As a civic leader he along with his peer William Le Baron Jenney, the West Parks commissioner, commissioned urban landscape designers such as Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux, Ossian Simonds, H. W. S. Cleveland, and Jens Jensen to create landscaped cemeteries, to implement a coordinated parks and boulevard system and to design the railroad-served suburbs to complement urban civilization.

[19] The parks districts were established as municipal corporations with funding based on the taxable real estate within its service area.

This position enabled him to pursue his vision which was to have a park system that would give "lungs to the great city and its future generations.

[5] He served as secretary for a group of Chicagoans who purchased 167 acres (0.68 km2) in 1853 to create Oak Woods Cemetery.