Preservation Chicago released its “Most Endangered” list for 2025 (on March 4, Chicago’s 188th birthday). Included with six threatened buildings is a bridge that allowed tens of millions of visitors to cross the Lagoon during the 1893 World’s Fair.

Designed by renowned architectural firm of Burnham & Root, the bridge was built in 1880 and is the oldest extant structure of Frederick Law Olmsted’s original design for Jackson Park. Officially renamed the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge in 1957, the significant structure is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and has Chicago Landmark status. The bridge is among very few surviving structures from the fairgrounds of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, but has stood in a state of disrepair behind a chain-link fence for sixteen years.

An overlay map of the 1893 fairgrounds and today show the bridge traversing the isthmus between the North Pond and the Lagoon. [A full map is available at https://worldsfairchicago1893.com/home/fair/fairgrounds/.]

Because the historic bridge suffered major deterioration over the decades, the Chicago Park District closed the bridge deck in 2009, effectively cutting-off visitors from walking east and west across the heart of Jackson Park. The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) has a Columbia Drive Bridge Replacement Project aimed at reconstructing the bridge “to its 1895 appearance.” CDOT has indicated that this project will “salvage and reuse as much historic material as possible.” The Clarence Darrow Bridge Preservation Coalition issued a forty-eight-page report on the history of the Darrow Bridge and recommendations for preservation and reconstruction.

In January, the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry announced that a $10 million grant from Driehaus Foundation will be used to renovate the south portico the Museum building, originally built as the Palace of Fine Arts for the Columbian Exposition.  Making the south portico accessible to MSI guests and the opening of the Obama Presidential Center should result in a marked increase in visitors to this area of Jackson Park. Restoring the nearby Darrow Bridge could provide invaluable complement to those projects.

Despite what the caption reads, this view from the south shows the Merchant Tailors’ Building on the left, the Palace of Fine Arts in the background, and the structure now called the Clarence Darrow Memorial Bridge in the center. [Image from Bancroft, Hubert Howe The Book of the Fair. The Bancroft Company, 1893.]