Local News

Cemetery May Lurk Under Surface Of Lincoln Park

CHICAGO (CBS) ― In the serenity of Lincoln Park, where we relax and play, you may not see dead people, but the remains of thousands may still be just under foot.

'They're not bodies. They were bodies once but now, 100 years later, they're not even coffins anymore, they say just skeletal remains," said Pamela Bannos, a Northwestern University researcher.

Two thousand cholera victims were buried under the ball fields in use since 1877.

It is also where 4,000 Confederate soldiers were buried after they died in the POW camp on the South Side.

The Couch family tomb is one of the only remaining signs that in the 1850s the area was indeed a 57-acre cemetery.

But Bannos, in a year-long online search of period newspaper articles, maps and other legal document, found the careful removal of bodies and tombstones here could only be traced to 12 acres.

"So the 57 acres total were not like being diligently exhumed," Bannos said. "The bodies were not being exhumed at that time."

Think of it: At it's height the cemetery may have been home to 35,000 graves.

"Then the Chicago fire came through and the fire destroyed a lot of the markers that were left, so if there's no marker, there's no body," Bannos said.

Bannos has catalogued her extensive research on a Web site she calls Hidden Truths. She has highlighted maps to pinpoint where bodies have been found in the neighborhood just south of the park, and she's collected video not previously released where construction workers unearth a metal coffin -- perhaps a sign that beneath our feet in Lincoln Park is a lot more than we might care to imagine.

Bannos doesn't like to put an exact number on how many bodies she believes are still beneath Lincoln Park, but when she does the math conservatively the remains of at least at least 10,000 people may still be buried there.

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