Ogden Park, also known as Ogden Skating Park, was a recreational facility on the near north side of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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around the 1860s and 1870s. It was home to the Ogden Skating Club. It was on a piece of land east of where Ontario Street (at that time) T-ed into Michigan Avenue. Today's Ontario Street continues several blocks eastward, through the site of that old park.
The first newspaper references to the park and the skating club appear in local newspapers in 1861, where its location was termed "the foot of Ontario Street". City directories for 1867 and 1869-70 give the location of "Ogden Skating Park" as "Ontario, corner Seneca." Seneca Street was one block east of St. Clair Street and two blocks east of Pine Street, which later became part of the extended Michigan Avenue. Seneca ran between Ontario Street and Illinois Street. It was erased as the land was developed. References to the park appear to cease after 1870. It was, of course, inside the burn zone of the
Great Chicago Fire
The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in the American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 10 ...
in the fall of 1871.
With no skating possible in the summer, baseball games were played at the park. Most of them were between local amateur ball clubs, but there were occasional professional games. On July 31, 1869, the park was the neutral site for a match between the
Cincinnati Red Stockings
The Cincinnati Red Stockings of were baseball's first all-professional team, with ten salaried players. The Cincinnati Base Ball Club formed in 1866 and fielded competitive teams in the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) 1867– ...
and the
Rockford Forest Citys
Rockford Forest Citys (officially the Forest City Club), from Rockford, Illinois was one of the first professional baseball clubs. Rockford played for one season during the National Association inaugural year of . They are not to be confused wit ...
. The Reds won 53-32. The game was close until Cincinnati score 19 in the sixth inning and 10 in the seventh.
hicago ''Tribune'', August 1, 1869, p.4Several players on the teams, including Rockford pitcher
Albert Spalding
Albert Goodwill Spalding (September 2, 1849 – September 9, 1915) was an American pitcher, manager, and executive in the early years of professional baseball, and the co-founder of A.G. Spalding sporting goods company. He was born and raised ...
, would later become stars for Chicago.
During 1870 the park was rented to the professional, then-independent baseball club, the
Chicago White Stockings, as a practice field and for a number of regulation games, usually against local or lesser-known opponents, or sometimes even college teams.
Most of the ball club's "legitimate" games (as the ''Chicago Tribune'' termed them), against national professional teams (many of which would turn up in the
National Association the following year) were held at the
Dexter Park race track near the stockyards.
Overall, the White Stockings played about half their games at each venue, during a home season that ranged from late May to mid-November.
Sources
*Archives of the ''Chicago Tribune''.
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Baseball venues in Chicago
Sports venues in Chicago