{"nrhp_refnum":"00001628","name":"Graceland Cemetery","other_names":["Graceland Cemetery and Crematorium"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"4001 N. Clark St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Chicago","county":"Cook County","state":"IL","lat":41.958179814500056,"lon":-87.66356516588789,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2001-01-18","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Architecture","Art"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A privately owned 119-acre rural and lawn-style cemetery at 4001 North Clark Street in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, Cook County, Illinois. It was founded in 1860 by Thomas Barbour Bryan and expanded through several designers over the following decades.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the cemetery is an exceptional landscape of the rural cemetery and landscape lawn types, with outstanding monuments, buildings and walls reflecting Chicago's design preeminence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its character is credited to Bryan, Bryan Lathrop and landscape gardener O.C. Simonds. Work by Swain Nelson, H.W.S. Cleveland, William Le Baron Jenney and Simonds shaped its sections, drainage and lake.","narrative":"Graceland Cemetery is a 119-acre burial ground on Chicago's north side, laid out from 1860 on a sandy glacial ridge known as the Graceland spit. Founder Thomas Barbour Bryan bought the first 86 acres, and Swain Nelson designed the southwest section with advice from William Saunders. H.W.S. Cleveland planned the northwest portion around 1870, and from 1878 William Le Baron Jenney and Ossian Cole Simonds drained the low eastern ground, shaped Lake Willowmere and laid out curving roads. Simonds continued as designer and administrator until 1931. Brick and concrete walls enclose the grounds, and red granite gateposts with cast iron gates by Holabird & Roche mark the main entrance. The cemetery follows the model of early rural cemeteries such as Mount Auburn and Green-Wood. It was listed for its landscape architecture, buildings and monuments, which the nomination presents as a balanced union of planting, terrain and sculpture and as an expression of Chicago design in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Swain Nelson (with William Saunders), Horace William Shaler Cleveland, William Le Baron Jenney, Ossian Cole Simonds; entrance gates by Holabird & Roche (1896)","architectural_style":"Chicago; Art Nouveau; Late 19th and 20th Century Revivals","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Still in use as a cemetery and crematorium; the entrance gates were recast in 1997.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:37.755696-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/33/8926/28892633/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_IL/00001628.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00001628/b078d6a81f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/00001628/b078d6a81f-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Michael Lazarev (Asmadeus)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graceland_Cemetery.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Michael Lazarev (Asmadeus)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Graceland_Cemetery.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/28892633","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graceland_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4148426"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/illinois/cook-county/graceland-cemetery-00001628/"}