Davis Square Park

Located right by Plant Chicago, Davis Square Park functions as a community space for events in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Located in the New City community area, often referred to as “Back of the Yards," Davis Square Park totals 8.88 acres. Davis Square was one of ten innovative parks which opened in 1905 to provide social services as well as breathing spaces to Chicago's congested tenement districts.

Conceived by South Park Commission superintendent J. Frank Foster, these innovative parks included a new type of building, the fieldhouse, inspired by Chicago's renowned settlement houses. The fieldhouses included classrooms, club and assembly rooms, the earliest branches of the Chicago Public Library, cafeterias, gymnasiums, and locker and public bathing facilities. Renowned architects D.H. Burnham and Co. designed the buildings and Olmsted Brothers landscape architects laid out the whole system of new parks. In addition to Davis Square, the first ten parks included Mark White, Russell, Armour, and Cornell Squares, and Ogden, Sherman, Palmer, Bessemer, and Hamilton Parks.

Davis Square pays tribute to Dr. Nathan Smith Davis (1817- 1904), one of the most significant figures in Chicago's medical history. Dr. Davis served as the chairman of physiology and general pathology for Rush Medical College. He went on to Lind University, the forerunner to the medical department of Northwestern University. He was a founder of Mercy Hospital, the Chicago Medical Society, and the American Medical Association. Dr. Davis was also a prolific writer of medical texts and for many years served as editor of the Northwestern Medical Journal.