Ada (Sawyer Garrett) Park

Created in 1930, Ada Park provided recreational facilities for the Morgan Park neighborhood's expanding African-American population. Initially, acquisition began in 1930.  Acquisition to expand the park was finalized in 1955; streets and alleys were vacated in 1957 to complete the 16.65-acre park.  The park was the last of those developed by the Calumet Park District, established in 1903. The Calumet Park District was one of 22 neighborhood park boards consolidated into the Chicago Park District in 1934. By 1931, Ada Park had a swimming pool and a few landscape improvements. After the Chicago Park District took control of the park in 1934, other recreational facilities were installed. The Park District erected a new bathhouse for the swimming pool in 1940, and built "fieldhouse additions" to the bathhouse in 1957 and 1990.

Until 1934, Ada Park was known as Loomis Street Park, for the street running along its west side. Late in that year, the Calumet Park District voted to change the name to Ada Park, for the street on the park's opposite side. The street is named for Ada Sawyer Garrett (1856-1938), who sold a baseball park, the last remaining vacant land in the Logan Square neighborhood, to developers in 1925. This land sale made way for a development that would define the Logan Square neighborhood as it is today. Though the Chicago Park District informed the Calumet Park District that it had no authority to rename the site Ada Park, the name has been used ever since.