• Altgeld Gardens Homes (1944-45, NRHP-eligible)
• Dolton Bridge / Riverdale Crossing site (1842)
• Beaubien Woods Forest Preserve
• Golden Gate Park (Chicago Park District)

Riverdale's history begins along the banks of the Little Calumet River, where George Dolton operated a chain ferry and Levi Osterhoudt ran a tavern from 1840 at what became known as Riverdale Crossing. In 1842, the two replaced the ferry with a toll bridge they called the Dolton Bridge. Seven years later, the Dolton family leased fifty acres to John Ton, a Dutch immigrant and abolitionist who ran an Underground Railroad station from the site and later helped found neighboring Roseland. Riverdale was annexed to Chicago in 1889.

In 1944 and 1945, the Chicago Housing Authority built Altgeld Gardens Homes on 190 acres in the neighborhood, providing 1,498 rowhouse units for returning African American World War II veterans and their families — one of the first public housing developments in the country, and eligible today for the National Register of Historic Places. Resident Hazel M. Johnson organized her neighbors here in 1979 to fight industrial pollution, work that helped launch the national environmental justice movement. Beaubien Woods Forest Preserve still borders the community along the Calumet River system.

From a river-crossing tavern to the birthplace of environmental justice, Riverdale's history runs as deep as the waterway that shaped it — a legacy worth wearing on your own stretch of the river.