Pottawatomie Park
park in Kane County, Illinois, United States of America
Pottawatomie Park is a historic public park in St. Charles, Illinois, along the eastern bank of the Fox River. Purchased in 1912 by the fledgling local park district, it became the first public park established under the Illinois Park Act of 1911.
History
Traditionally used by the Meskwaki and Potawatomi people (the latter of whom lend their name to the park), the land was purchased at the town's 1834 incorporation by local settler Calvin Ward. Ward's son Lorenzo built an outdoor pavilion and a mansion on the site, in line with the many cottages that had been built along the river in the latter portion of the nineteenth century. After Ward's mansion burned down, the Chicago Great Western Railway acquired and built a line through the land in 1905. The park district purchased the underlying land from the railroad in 1912, to prevent commercial development of the property.
A grant in the 1920s from both the Works Progress Administration and philanthropist Edward J. Baker facilitated construction of several facilities in the park, including tennis courts, two swimming pools, and a nine-hole golf course.
In 2010, the Union Pacific Railroad, successor to the Chicago and Great Western, successfully petitioned the Surface Transportation Board to abandon its line through the park. As the St.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Pottawatomie Park” as park in Kane County, Illinois, United States of America. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as park in Kane County, Illinois, United States of America. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q49545428. Authority coordinates are 41.923, -88.316. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1911, 1834 and 1905.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Pottawatomie Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Pottawatomie Park primary sources, Pottawatomie Park archive and Pottawatomie research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Pottawatomie Park”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Pottawatomie Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.