Francis M. Drexel Memorial Fountain

Francis M. Drexel Memorial Fountain 1910 (Chuckman Chicago Nostalgia collection)

The Fountain deserves its own post as the oldest surviving public fountain in Chicago (seahorses!) but since I just posted on Olmsted, Cleveland, and the role of Drexel Boulevard in the South Parks plan, I thought I’d ask, why Drexel when the man never set foot in Chicago? Drexel was quite a character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Martin_Drexel but the name of the boulevard has more to do with his sons.

I found the answer in Susan O’Connor Davis’s articles in the Herald. Dr. Egan, who came to Chicago from Ireland in 1833, originally owned a large tract of land he called Egandale, which he wanted to turn into an estate like those in Ireland—complete with a winding road to the north. Egan died in 1860 with the lands mortgaged to Drexel & Smith of Philadelphia. When the South Parks boundaries were being hashed out in 1865, the commission wanted to extend the parks into these open lands, but the Drexel sons, whose father had died in 1863, refused (in a well-financed stormy battle). The sons agreed to donate the existing Grove Parkway for the landscaped boulevard connecting the western park to Chicago proper because they knew the boulevard would turn the land into extremely valuable real estate. Then in 1881, the sons agreed to pay for the statue, fountain, and landscaping around it because the boulevard had been renamed for Francis. The fountain was erected at the contentious boundary where the boulevard enters Washington Park. Francis gazes out at his good investment. One of the sons used his wealth to found Drexel University.