Revere Park lies just east of the Chicago River's North Branch, in the North Center neighborhood, once home to a nationally important brick making industry. In 1898, Wolfram Blaul built a brick factory on the 9-acre property that would later become Revere Park. In little more than a decade, however, the site's clay pits were being used as a city dump. By 1917, River Park District Commissioner John J. O'Shea had tired of this eyesore, and began to push for a park on the site. O'Shea quickly won over the park board, which acquired the property in 1921.
Improvements began the following year.
Blaul's original cottage was remodeled as a fieldhouse, and some planting began. In 1926, another River Park District board member, Albert F. Otte, suggested that the new park, then known as O'Shea Park, be dedicated to the honor of patriot Paul Revere (1735-1818). Revere, a silversmith, made a famous midnight ride through the Massachusetts countryside to warn of the British approach during the early days of the American Revolution. By 1928, Jacob L. Crane, Jr., a landscape architect and an early River Park board member, had prepared detailed plans for Revere Park.
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