Washington Square Park lies in the affluent Near North neighborhood adjacent to the esteemed Newberry Library. It’s hard to believe this stately patch of green was once ground zero for oratory by Chicago’s socialists, atheists, and eccentrics. Sometimes, you can still relive the park’s radical past as Bughouse Square.
Chicago’s Oldest Park
For decades, the park was known as Bughouse Square. “Bughouse” is slang for a mental health facility, and the freewheeling park often resembled a madhouse. Chicago’s oldest public park got its start in the 1840s when a developer left his cow pasture to the city to become a park. A provision required a wall be built around it, so the city erected the short limestone barrier you see today. Another provision allowed anyone to make a speech in the park at any time.
A Free Speech Spectacle
People with something to say took advantage of this provision from the 1890s through the 1960s, filling the park nightly with passionate rants, theories, and debates and the hecklers who loved them. Bughouse regulars included preachers, anarchists, hobos, and screwballs. “One-Armed” Charlie Wendorf had the Constitution memorized and was considered the “mayor” of Bughouse Square. Sister Gracie would be overcome by religious ecstasies while on the soapbox, while the “Cosmic Kid” took the audience on “flights of fancy into empyrean realms of thought.”
Bughouse Square was one of dozens of “free speech parks” in Chicago in the early twentieth century. Among the speakers who shouted from wooden crates in the square were Carl Sandburg, Clarence Darrow, Eugene Debs, and Studs Terkel, whose ashes were spread in the park.
Modern Day Debates
By the 1960s, speeches in Bughouse Square had dwindled, possibly due to the rise of television. However, the right to speak in the park remains. Some summers, the soapboxes return to the park for the Bughouse Square Debates. It’s a public forum inviting people to encounter new ideas or mount the soapbox and share theirs. There’s plenty of present-day material for Chicago’s orators to convey, including healthcare policy, nuclear warfare, and UFOs.
In 1971, the Chicago Tribune interviewed a former Bughouse Square regular named Jimmie Sheridan. When asked whether he missed the old days at the square, Sheridan replied, “Don’t need to. The whole world has become Bughouse Square.”
Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square
This year, the Newberry Library is changing up the debate format by hosting Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square 2023: Chicago Forward on July 15 from 1-4:30 p.m. The event celebrates the power of storytelling and the future of Chicago featuring speakers whose work in the city strives to change our communities for the better.
The legendary Rick Kogan will host the event which includes speakers like Shermann Dilla Thomas, Chad the Bird, Kim L. Hunt, Ada Cheng, Channyn Lynne Parker, and Kelly Suzanne Saulsberry, with a performance by the Jumping Juniors.
Sources
- Casper, Don. “Bughouse Square lives again!” Chicago Tribune; May 3, 1975; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune. pg. 5
- “Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square 2023: Chicago Forward.” Chicago Storytelling in Bughouse Square 2023: Chicago Forward.
- Coates, James. “‘Jimmie of Bughouse Square’: One of Last Soapboxers Dies.” Chicago Tribune; Feb 7, 1972; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune. pg. A16.
- Taylor, Troy, et al. Weird Chicago: Forgotten History, Strange Legends & Mysterious Hauntings of the Windy City. Whitechapel Press, 2009.
Washington Square Park
901 N. Clark St.
Chicago, IL 60610
Jessica Mlinaric founded Urban Explorer in 2010 to inspire curious travelers by highlighting history, culture, and hidden gems in Chicago and beyond. She is the author of ‘Secret Chicago’ and ‘Chicago Scavenger.’ Jessica has visited 20+ countries and 30+ U.S. states. She has more than 16 years of experience as a marketing strategist and works as a freelance writer and photographer.
