Collection: Graceland Cemetery and Arboretum - Chicago

A private cemetery since its beginning, Graceland was established in 1860 by Thomas Bryan, a lawyer with a successful Chicago practice. He purchased its original 80 acres and received a perpetual charter from Illinois in 1861, and soon hired prominent landscape architect H.W.S. Cleveland to plan its park-like ambiance._x005F

With Bryan as president of the cemetery company, many prominent Chicagoans joined the board of managers, including the city’s first mayor, real estate entrepreneur William Ogden. Many other wealthy Chicagoans became members and purchased large family lots and “landscape rooms.” Still an active cemetery, even today Graceland can accommodate a few more Chicago families who want to join this prominent pantheon.

Originally, Graceland’s southern boundary – now Irving Park Road – was two miles outside Chicago’s city limits, in the town of Lake View. After some negotiation with the town’s residents, Graceland expanded eastward and northwest to encompass its pres