Restored Map of Jackson Park Before the 1893 World’s Fair

To celebrate the American Library Association’s Preservation Week (April 21-27, 2019), the Chicago Public Library has posted some remarkable photographs of their conservation work on a very fragile map of Jackson Park before the 1893 World’s Fair.

The “General Plan for the Jackson Park Shore Protection” was drawn for the South Park Commissioners in 1885, five years before the park was selected as the site to build the fairgrounds for the Columbian Exposition, which opened in May of 1893. The map shows the familiar shape of the Lake Michigan shoreline, with the North Pier (near where the Battleship USS Illinois exhibit and Victoria House would be built) and the South Pier (on which a Moving Sidewalk would operate) clearly visible.