Lincoln Park stretches out in front of you, the great green spine of the North Side and home to one of the last free zoos in America. The zoo began in 1868 with a gift of two swans from New York's Central Park, and grew into a beloved institution that has never charged admission. The park itself has a stranger origin: much of it was once a city cemetery, including a smallpox burial ground, and in the years after the Civil War the bodies were relocated to make way for parkland, though some are believed to remain beneath the lawns.
One tomb still stands among the trees, the Couch mausoleum, never moved. The park stretches for miles along the lakefront, a ribbon of beaches, lagoons, and ball fields. Walk toward the zoo's historic Kovler Lion House or the conservatory's glass domes, and remember that this peaceful green, free to all, was reclaimed from the dead.