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By Barbara Puechler, Class of 2006

Bronzeville docents can soon include mention of cemeteries during their tour. Cemeteries are already featured on several CAF tours, examples being Graceland, Rosehill, Lake Forest, and the Bohemian National Cemetery. Lincoln Park’s cemetery origins are also acknowledged on tours. These, like many of Chicago’s cemeteries, date from the Civil War period.

The Lake Meadows Shopping Center recently received attention with the announcement that Culver’s, a hamburger franchise, would be building a new structure at the 35th and Martin Luther King Drive location. According to historians studying the area, not only was the shopping center built over Camp Douglas, a Civil War era prisoner camp, but the site also contained a cemetery in which “655 Confederate soldiers who died of smallpox were buried.” Since it was not uncommon to move bodies from cemeteries to other areas as Chicago grew, leaving remnants of bone material behind, researchers are prepared to conduct archaeological surveys if bones and other items are found.

For more information, check out the article in DNAInfo Chicago: Culver’s Being Built on a Smallpox Cemetery Used in Civil War, Historians Say