• Clarke House (built 1836, oldest house in Chicago)
• Glessner House (1887, designed by H.H. Richardson)
• Prairie Avenue Historic District
• Battle of Fort Dearborn Park marker

Near South Side developed in the 1850s around the lumber yards and railroad shops that grew up along the south branch of the Chicago River, but its defining chapter came after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, when the blaze spared this stretch of the city and Chicago's wealthiest families relocated here, building the mansions of what became known as Prairie Avenue's "Millionaire's Row."

The Clarke House, built in 1836 and the oldest surviving structure in Chicago, escaped the fire entirely and has since been moved twice to its current home; the Glessner House, designed by architect Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1887, anchors the same historic Prairie Avenue District, both now preserved as Chicago Landmarks and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

A neighborhood the fire skipped over, built up by the families it made rich — Near South Side's oldest houses have outlasted nearly everything the flames destroyed. MY-NHD's collection is a way to keep that resilience in view.