• Mount Greenwood Cemetery (est. 1879)
• St. Xavier University campus
• Mount Greenwood Park (24 acres)
• Chicago Public Library Mount Greenwood Branch

Mount Greenwood takes its name from the cemetery that gave rise to it: in 1879, surveyor George Waite platted an 80-acre federal land grant on a tree-covered ridge and named the burial ground Mount Greenwood, drawn by soil ideal for digging and easy rail access for funeral parties arriving from the city. Other cemeteries soon clustered nearby, earning the area the nickname "Seven Holy Tombs," and in 1907 local property owners incorporated it as an independent village — partly to keep the saloons that had grown up to serve mourners from being shut down by neighboring Morgan Park.

Mount Greenwood Cemetery itself remains the only unincorporated cemetery within Chicago's city limits, even though it's fully surrounded by the city it didn't join until 1927. St. Xavier University has occupied its Mount Greenwood campus since 1956, and the 24-acre Mount Greenwood Park, purchased by the park district in 1949, has anchored community recreation since its 1966 fieldhouse opened.

Founded to bury the dead and named for what grew above them, Mount Greenwood has spent more than a century proving a cemetery town can become a genuine neighborhood. MY-NHD's collection carries that unlikely history.