• McKinley Park (NRHP-listed, Chicago Boulevard System)
• 1905 McKinley memorial statue by Charles Mulligan
• 1916 fieldhouse by D.H. Burnham & Company
• Central Manufacturing District

McKinley Park traces its earliest settlement to around 1836, when Irish laborers building the Illinois and Michigan Canal took squatter's claims on the swampy ground near Ashland and Archer Avenues, in an area then nicknamed Mount Pleasant. Annexed to Chicago in 1863, the community grew rapidly after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 pushed displaced iron, steel, and brickyard industries into the neighborhood, and the area took its present name after the South Park Commission dedicated a new park here in 1902, honoring President William McKinley following his assassination the year before.

That park, now a contributing property of the Chicago Boulevard System's National Register of Historic Places listing, still anchors the neighborhood, with a 1905 bronze memorial to McKinley by sculptor Charles Mulligan and a 1916 fieldhouse designed by D.H. Burnham & Company. The historic Central Manufacturing District, established along Pershing Road in 1905, remains a working reminder of the area's industrial roots.

Built by canal diggers and steelworkers, and named for a president it never saw in life, McKinley Park has always worn its history close to the surface. MY-NHD's collection lets you do the same.