History
The 31st Street Beach is located in Burnham Park, a green space first envisioned by renowned architect Daniel Burnham in his seminal 1909 Plan of Chicago. Burnham’s ambitious plan to create a ribbon of lakefront parkland took many years to realize. At that time, Chicago only had four municipal beaches. These beaches were far from the south side, so residents began using a sandy strip of land between 25th and 29th Streets as a bathing beach. In 1920, voters approved $20 million to build the lakefront park. Seven years later, the South Park Commission named this green space made of landfill in honor of Burnham.
Burnham Park served as the site for Chicago’s second World’s Fair, A Century of Progress, between 1933 and 1934. After the fair, the newly consolidated Chicago Park District made additional plans for Burnham Park that echoed Burnham’s original vision for the space. With federal funding through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the park district began improvements in the mid-1930s, including additional landfill, playfields, walkways, tennis courts, basketball courts, and the 31st Street Beach and beach house.
A 1997 initiative called for the replacement of outdated structures on the lakefront, so the modern beach house replaced the original structure. At turn of the 21st century, the Army Corps of Engineers began to reconstruct the shoreline revetments in Burnham Park from 26th Street to 56th Street, allowing for the expansion of 31st Street Beach into a much larger beach.
