The Lincoln Park Gun Club was a private (later public) gun club founded in 1912 by

Oscar F. Mayer Oscar Ferdinand Mayer (March 29, 1859 – March 11, 1955) was a German American who founded the processed-meat firm Oscar Mayer that bears his name. Early life and career Mayer was born in Kösingen (now part of Neresheim), in the Kingdom of ...

, W. C. Peacock, P. K. Wrigley,

Sewell Avery Sewell Lee Avery (November 4, 1874 – October 31, 1960) was an American businessman who achieved early prominence in gypsum mining and became president of the United States Gypsum Company (1905–1936). At the beginning of the Depression, he ...

, and other prominent Chicagoans.

John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to dist ...

and his band performed at the clubhouse's dedication. The club was located in Chicago's

Lincoln Park Lincoln Park is a park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue (500 N), on the south, ...

, near

Diversey Harbor The term Diversey may refer to: * Diversey (CTA), an 'L' station on the CTA Brown Line. * Diversey Holdings, manufacturer of cleaning and hygiene products. * Diversey Parkway (Chicago) People with the name Diversey: * Michael Diversey Michael Di ...

. The club was built and primarily operated for

skeet shooting Skeet shooting is a recreational and competitive activity where participants use shotguns to attempt to break clay targets which two fixed stations mechanically fling into the air at high speed and at a variety of angles. Skeet is one of the t ...

and

trap shooting Trap shooting, or trapshooting in North America, is one of the three major disciplines of competitive clay pigeon shooting, which is shooting shotguns at clay targets. The other disciplines are skeet shooting and sporting clays. They are disting ...

, with occasional waterfowl hunting. Its address was 2901 N. Lake Shore Drive. In February 1991, then Illinois Attorney General

Roland Burris Roland Wallace Burris (born August 3, 1937) is an American politician and attorney who is a former United States Senator from the state of Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party. In 1978, Burris was the first African American elected to ...

sued the club for allegedly polluting the lake with lead shot. The lakefront had previously been dredged in 1947 to remove and gather the accumulated lead, with disputes taking place over who would benefit from its sale (500 tons of lead were recovered and lead was then selling for $300 a ton). The Chicago Park District, who owned the land where the gun club operated, immediately shut down the club until it could prove its activities were safe and also insisted it pay to have the lakefront dredged. Members charged that the shutdown was not due to pollution, but because of anti-gun bias. The gun club filed suit against the park district; however their suit was dismissed. The following summer, most of the club's buildings were demolished by the park district. In 1995, Park District Superintendent

Forrest Claypool Forrest Edward Claypool is an American politician who has held several positions in the governments of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools from July 27, 2015, until Decemb ...

planned to reorganize the parks as quasi-private affairs, with private companies providing services on the property. That year, the gun club's former clubhouse reopened as a community center. The city had paid $500,000 two years prior for an analysis of the soil and sand where the club had operated; however the study, performed by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, determined that there was no pollution present, and that although there was a significant amount of lead shot and clay pigeons resting on the lake's bottom, it posed no health risk to humans or aquatic life.

References

External links

Photos from the former club

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln Park Gun Club Shooting ranges in the United States Shooting sports organizations