Graceland Cemetery

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.