The history of Dan Ryan Woods – Part 5: The “Mystic Forest Preserve”
By Carol Flynn
In 1902, John B. Sherman, who owned the land that became Dan Ryan Woods, died of influenza. He was buried in Oak Woods Cemetery. Sherman Park on Garfield Boulevard was established in his honor and his son-in law, architect Daniel Burnham, designed the buildings.
Parcels of his original land holdings had been sold off through the years. In 1889, Sherman sold his land north of 79th Street to a developer. The land north of 83rd Street followed in 1891. Land had been rented west of Western since 1889 for an equestrian and golf club, and after Sherman’s death, investors bought more land to further develop the Beverly Country Club. The old apple orchard became part of the golf course.
It was rumored that Sherman intended to donate his Forest Hill Farm on the Ridge to the City of Chicago to be used as a park. There was also speculation that the land would become a residential development. Neither happened, and the land went undeveloped for over a decade until the Forest Preserves of Cook County (FPCC) purchased it. People continued to enjoy the woods unofficially during those years.
In 1912, a Chicago Tribune article stated: “What is the best place around Chicago to go botanizing? On large tracts of land held for speculation at the edges of the city, say southwest of Western avenue, you will find practically the original prairie vegetation. In season many kinds of prairie flowers bloom there – resin weed, several varieties of sunflowers, compass plants, daisies and the like. Down along the Calumet River there are violets a plenty, and all sorts of wild beauties at Blue Island ridge and Forest Hill.”
The new Beverly Hills Preserve, commonly referred to as the Beverly woods, was added to the FPCC in 1917. The location immediately engaged the public’s imagination. It was a unique piece of land within the city itself, not connected to the outer belt of preserves.
On August 6, 1919, the Chicago Tribune featured an article, “Beverly Hills Unique Among City Viewpoints,” authored by an anonymous Eye Witness. The subtitle was “Mystic Forest Preserve is ‘Good Place to Muse In,’ says Eye Witness.”
The article was just so eloquent it begged to be shared.
“I was telling the boys yesterday about the accessibility of Beverly Hills tract of the Forest Preserve for their purposes of scouting and Indian make-believe, and remarked … that the spot also had its appeal for grownups.
“’Tis a great place to mull over many things relative to the now, and the then, and the what’s to come, for it combines solitude with the teeming associations of an age when this seat of present quiet was a point for briefly marking time in the westward march of an empire.
“Many a time I have passed that way, and ever found it worth while to tarry. Always there is a witchery of sunlight and shadow gliding over the prospect the height commands – in winter when it rears itself, austere and white, above miles of slow-shifting, frosty vapor; in the menace of storm when all the plain is empurpled and the thunder-wind comes scudding down from the north with its lashing sound; at the July noonday when the rock radiates visible heat like a gigantic oven and the locusts make the place vibrant with their metallic sawing, and at twilight when the locomotives, like fire-eyed monsters, creep across the darkening purple and the White City tower … takes on the aspect of something Florentine and fine.
“Yes, next to its accessibility … the value of the Beverly Hills preserve is its view, for in this low lying region, … the natural eminences that give us a spacious survey of our town are few and meager. Of these few the Beverly rise is perhaps the most impressive. Citadel like, it bulwarks the soft region of farms and woodlands behind it.
“Furthermore … it arises from unspoiled wildwood, while the picture beneath is all emblematic of commerce and industry. … I don’t know in what land you could survey a more pregnant panorama, or one fraught with fresher or more decisive contrasts. … Before you, a city grumbling and sweating and aspiring under its mantle of smoke and under the midsummer sun; behind you, children shouting, birds whistling, and the hot wind in the trees.
“But ‘tis futile and mere space filling to try to catch with words the elusiveness of such light and shade or to mark the routine of these regularly recurrent wonders. … Ah, mystery and magic of the craft of words. …
“I told you Beverly Hills was a good place for musing.”
The identity of this “Eye Witness” has never surfaced, but based on writing style and choice of words, one possibility is David Herriott, the Morgan Park Postmaster and the owner/publisher/editor/writer of the Morgan Park Post newspaper. He was a great one for “musing” in his writings.
Next installment: The Pike estate joins the Beverly Hills Preserve