Beaches in Chicago
The beaches in Chicago are an extensive network of waterfront recreational areas operated by the Chicago Park District. The Chicago metropolitan waterfront includes parts of the Lake Michigan shores as well as parts of the banks of the Chicago, Des Plaines, Calumet, Fox, and DuPage Rivers and their tributaries. The waterfront also includes the Illinois and Michigan Canal and the Sanitary and Ship Canal. Historically, the waterfront has been used for commerce, industry, and leisure. Leisure, such as fishing, swimming, hunting, walking and boating, was much more prevalent throughout the river sections of the waterfront system early in the 19th century before industrial uses altered the landscape. By midcentury, much leisure shifted to Lake Michigan as a result of industrial influence. The first City of Chicago Public Beach opened in Lincoln Park in 1895. Today, the entire 28 miles (45 km) Chicago lakefront shoreline is man-made, and primarily used as parkland. There are twenty-four beaches in Chicago along the shores of freshwater Lake Michigan.
Typically, Chicago beaches take the name of the east-west street that runs perpendicular to the lake at each beach's location.
Chicago's earliest sand beaches resulted naturally from capturing sand moved by the current south along the shoreline toward the Indiana Dunes, but these beaches were dynamic, and shifted and eroded. When Chicago began building peers and other structures into the lake, large sandy beaches formed. Early beaches were generally funded by private entities such as hotels and private clubs.
Late 19th century city ordinances prohibited public bathing, but popular norms created demand for public beaches. Proponents saw public beaches as an opportunity to accommodate demand for public baths and eliminate the expenditure of enforcement resources on ordinance violations for public bathing. The city responded by opening the first public bathing beach in 1895 in Lincoln Park primarily as a response to the efforts of the Free Bath and Sanitary League (formerly the Municipal Order League). Spaces were designated for public use and the city accepted responsibility for maintaining the beaches. By 1900 the lakefront was divided into zones of recreational, residential, agricultural and industrial uses. Lake Michigan water quality concerns lead to the reversal of the Chicago river with deep cut of the Illinois & Michigan canal in 1871 and the construction of the Sanitary and Ship Canal at the start of the 20th century. The 1909 Burnham Plan led to development of the lakefront. Recreational development on the city lakefront became a priority due to the influence of Aaron Montgomery Ward. His belief that the public's access to the Lake left its impression on the development of Jackson, Burnham, Grant and Lincoln Parks. Continued popular support, led to the opening of several municipal beaches in the second decade of the 20th century. Modern beaches are formed from a combination of sand deposited by lake current, and human deposited inland sand from nearby sand-pits left by the last ice age, as well as sand dredged from the lake bottom.
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