Fort Sheridan

By Diana Dretske

Amid Chicago’s North Shore communities is a national landmark—the former U.S. Army Base at Fort Sheridan (1887-1993). Fort Sheridan was created out of the civil and labor unrest following the Chicago Fire of 1871, the great Railway Strike of 1877, and the Haymarket Riot of 1886. These events produced an atmosphere of insecurity, prompting Chicago’s wealthiest businessmen—North Shore residents and members of the Commercial Club of Chicago—to levy their influence with the federal government in establishing an army presence in their backyards. Fort Sheridan is a place rich in the traditions of the U.S. cavalry and artillery, of training camps, and the Women’s Army Corps. This illustrated history explores the many aspects of Fort Sheridan and takes the reader on a journey through military life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Feb 16, 2005
• ISBN: 9781439615201

Diana Dretske

Author Diana Dretske is the Lake County historian for the Lake County Discovery Museum in Wauconda, Illinois. She lectures extensively on local history and has written books on Lake County and its place names.

Book preview

1946.

INTRODUCTION

Over 100 years after its establishment, Fort Sheridan is going through a re-birth. Now largely a private community, the Fort has taken on a new life, a new vibrancy. It is hard to imagine the number of individuals who have come through its gates, but undoubtedly every one of them has in some way been impressed by this historic place.

Though it lies within the boundaries of Lake County, Illinois, Fort Sheridan’s beginnings are tied more closely to Chicago than to the county it calls home. By 1870, Chicago had grown to 300,000, and was quickly becoming the commercial and railroad hub of the nation. But on October 8, 1871, tragedy struck—the Great Chicago Fire destroyed 18,000 buildings and left tens of thousands of people homeless. Chicago Mayor Roswell Mason declared martial law and put Gen. Philip Sheridan in charge. Sheridan (1831-1888), the son of Irish immigrants, was celebrated for his successful offensives during the Civil War. His troops built temporary shelters for the victims of the Chicago Fire and restored order.

Chicago was quickly re-built, but unrest continued in the form of labor strikes. One such strike was the national railroad strike which spread to Chicago in July 1877, and culminated in the deaths of 30 strikers. By the time of the Haymarket Riot of 1886, Chicago’s wealthy businessmen, including Philip Armour, Marshall Field, and George Pullman, saw the makings of a working class revolution and became uneasy.

These influential businessmen, members of the Commercial Club, and some residents of Chicago’s North Shore communities, discussed the possibility of the government establishing a military post near the city to protect their interests and to permanently maintain order. Philip Sheridan was also a member of the Club, and with his advice the Club purchased and donated over 600 acres of land near Highwood to the government. The first regiment, consisting of 84 men, arrived at the Camp at Highwood under the command of Maj. William Lyster in November 1887. On February 27, 1888, the site was officially re-named Fort Sheridan by Sheridan himself who was then Commanding General of the Army.

Brig. Gen. Samuel B. Holabird, Quartermaster General of the Army, awarded the commission for designing Fort Sheridan to his son’s firm of Holabird and Roche. Founded in 1880, the Chicago architectural firm of Holabird and Roche would be significant in the development of early skyscrapers and especially influential in the architectural movement known as the Chicago School. Their later projects included Soldier Field, the Chicago Board of Trade, and the Palmolive Building.

The first 64 buildings at Fort Sheridan were constructed between 1889 and 1895 out of an estimated 6 million bricks made on site out of clay mined from the bluffs. Prior to the Fort’s creation this was the site of St. John’s—a brick manufacturing village, located south of the Fort’s historic district, which operated from 1844 to approximately 1865.

While Holabird and Roche were designing the buildings, nationally recognized landscape architect Ossian C. Simonds (1855-1931) was sighting the buildings and suggesting roads and paths to connect them. Simonds made use of the large tract of level land between the ravines for the parade grounds, and placed the military residences around this land to create a hollow square, reflecting earlier fort designs. The parade grounds provided space for military drilling, but also captured the essence of the prairie landscape. Using a technique called broad view, Simonds employed irregular masses of trees and shrubs to create an indefinite border that made the open space of the parade grounds seem to extend beyond