Located in Chicago's Lake View neighborhood, Graceland Cemetery occupies nearly 120 acres at the northeast corner of Irving Park Rd. and Clark St. Amongst the quiet beauty of H.W.S. Cleveland and O.C. Simonds' historic and original landscape designs are many architectural gems, including the Getty Tomb by Louis Sullivan and Eternal Silence by Lorado Taft.
Graceland Cemetery received a special charter by act of the state legislature of Illinois in 1861. A few years later, the legislature created the Trustees of the Graceland Cemetery Improvement Fund, a non-profit corporation, which operates the cemetery.
Since its establishment, the cemetery has been in continuous operation with more than 150,000 interred.
Graceland Cemetery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Graceland also operates a crematorium and a new columbarium, a structure of vaults lined with recesses for storing cinerary urns.
The cemetery is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. year round.
Among the famous artists who designed monuments are: Louis Sullivan - the Getty Tomb, the Ryerson Tomb; Lorado Taft - the Dexter Graves statue called Eternal Silence (also known as The Statue of Death), and Crusader on the monument for Victor Lawson, Daily News founder and publisher; Howard Van Doren Shaw - Goodman Monument as well as his own; McKim, Mead & White - Kimball and Honore monuments.
Some of the many prominent Chicago figures interred at Graceland are: Daniel Burnham, who fought to make Chicago's Lakefront a park to be enjoyed by all; Louis Sullivan, a renowned designer and architect; George Pullman, who helped to revolutionize traveling by rail; Philip Armour, a pioneer of the Chicago meat-packing industry; Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a well known "modern" architect; William Goodman, who founded the Goodman Theater as a tribute to his son; Marshall Field, who founded Marshall Fields retailing empire and endowed The Field Museum of Natural History; Potter Palmer, who developed State Street, making it one of the centers of Chicago commerce and established residential living on the Near North as "fashionable"; Charles Wacker, who co-authored, with Burnham, Chicago's current city plan.
The cemetery welcomes more than 250 visitors per week in the spring, summer and fall months. Self-guided walking tours begin every weekday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in front of the visitor's center at the main entrance, where monument and walking maps are available.
Formal study tours are scheduled during late August, September and October, through the Chicago Architecture Foundation. For more information on these tours, contact Ann Ranallo at (312) 922-3432, ext. 254.
In addition, the Ravenswood-Lake View Historical Association will lead a tour on two Sundays, July 14 and Sept. 15. For tour reservations ($10), call (312) 744-7616.
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