Throop Park is one of many small city parks created to meet the growing recreational demands of post-World War II Chicago. The city's Bureau of Parks and Recreation developed this Lower West Side park on Board of Education-owned property in the late 1940s, improving it with a gravel-surfaced playground and a spray pool. Within a few years, a basketball court was added. The Chicago Park District began managing Throop Park in 1959. In 1976, the park district thoroughly rehabilitated the site, building a shelter, enhancing the plantings, and constructing bleachers around the resurfaced basketball court. The Board of Education formally transferred the property to the park district in 1990. Subsequent improvements included a soft surface playground and ornamental fencing. In 1998, the park district enlarged the park by expanding into an adjacent vacant. Both the park and adjacent Throop Street bear the name of Amos Gager Throop (1814--1894), one of Chicago's most prominent early citizens. Born in New York, he came west to Michigan in 1832, where he worked in the forests and saw mills. By 1845, he owned enough land to begin shipping lumber to Chicago and the frontier beyond. Throop served as a Chicago alderman from 1849 to 1853, and again from 1876 to 1880. Between the two terms, he was city treasurer in 1860-1861, moving on to the state legislature, where he worked to keep southern Illinois loyal to the Union cause.

Back of the Yards Park also offers a walking path.  Distance: 0.17 miles