Washington Park was conceived by Paul Cornell , a Chicago real estate magnate who had founded the adjoining town of Hyde Park . Cornell had lobbied the Illinois General Assembly to establish the South Park Commission . After his efforts succeeded in 1869 , the South Park Board of Commissioners identified more than south of Chicago for a large park and boulevards that would connect it with downtown and the extant West Park System . Originally called South Park , the property was composed of eastern and western divisions , now bearing the names Jackson and Washington Parks and the Midway Plaisance . Cornell hired Frederick Law Olmsted and his partner , Calvert Vaux , to lay out the park in the 1870s . Their blueprints were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871
Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
Washington Park (Chicago park)