South Bridge, Spanning Jackson Park Lagoon at South Lake Shore Drive (U.S. Route 41), Chicago, Cook County, IL

Significance: In 1894, the South Park Commission, administrator of Chicago's south side park system, retained the Boston-area landscape architecture firm of Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot to refurbish Jackson Park, a lagoon-studded preserve on Lake Michigan. The redesign was ready a year later. In addition to new plantings, roadways, and recreational areas, it called for reshaping the park's two southern lagoons and spanning their connecting waterway with a new bridge. South Bridge, designed by Chicago architect Peter J. Weber, would be completed in 1904 as a 46-foot, barrel-vaulted, reinforced-concrete arch. As befit its highly visible location near the park's perimeter, the structure delivered a polished Beaux Arts statement, its spandrels clad in dressed ashlar limestone accented by sculpted heads of exotic animals.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N666
Survey number: HAER IL-146