[4] In the mid-to-late 19th century, a large number of Irish and German railroad workers and meatpackers made Washington Park home.

Affluent American-born European Americans settled the wide north-south avenues that provided a direct route into the Loop 7 miles (11 km) to the north.

[6] In the 1920s, the University of Chicago created the community area system of city subdivision with the current names that continue to be used today.

In 1906 they formed the South Shore Country Club, which excluded Black people and Jews from membership.

[13] The failure of the evolution of industry and commerce in the community, the above-mentioned white flight and land redevelopment for non-residential use combined lead to population decline.

[4] The neighborhood once contained many public housing complexes including about a third of the nation's largest, the Robert Taylor Homes.

[15] One city block to the north, Washington Park Court District is a neighborhood that has become a Chicago Landmark.

[4] In Richard Wright's novel Native Son, Bigger Thomas drives the drunken Jan Erlone and Mary Dalton around Washington Park, as the two embrace.

[18] The play Raisin in the Sun was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's time in the neighborhood after her father won the repeal of restrictive covenants.