Humboldt Park | The Most Beautiful Places in Chicago

Humboldt Park

Humboldt Park, located in the neighborhood of the same name, is one of the three parks connected by boulevards that architect William Le Baron Jenney planned for Chicago’s West Side, along with Garfield and Douglass parks. It’s named for German scientist Alexander von Humboldt. Though it originally opened in the 1870s, landscape architect Jens Jensen later redesigned the park, hoping it could serve as respite for “those who have no other garden except their window sills.” Beautiful features, particularly its buildings and other structures, can be found across the park’s nearly 200 acres. The Humboldt Park Receptory and Stable Building was built to house horses and landscaping equipment, and it also served as Jensen’s office. With its light-red clay tiles and grand turrets, the Queen Anne-style building now houses the National Puerto Rican Museum of Arts & Culture. The park’s prairie-style, open-air boathouse is another showstopper, with its three dramatic arches opening to the lagoon. In 2019, the park’s lagoon was front and center in the news, as a 5-foot, 30-pound alligator nicknamed Chance the Snapper was found and captured after a week of evading officials. The park also has the city’s only inland beach.