Bessie Coleman Park

Welcome to Chicago's Bessie Coleman Park, first established in 1973 as Willow Park. Like Armstrong Park and others, this park was renamed in 2005 in recognition of women from the Chicago Area. Bessie Coleman worked as a manicurest and later owned a chili parlor before she had the dream of becoming a woman pilot after learning from her brother that Europe had women pilots. She attended flight school in France and became the first African American woman to be issued a pilot's license. When she returned to the United States she campaigned for civil rights and performed at numerous air shows nationwide. Today a portion of O'Hare International Airport is named for her as is a local library. The U.S. Postal service put her face on a stamp in 1995 and there is a group of African American female pilots known as the Bessie Coleman Aviator's Club that still exists to this day. Today this park boasts a playground for the kids but as the founder of RecPlanet I cannot say whether or not the playground has any pieces of equipment modeled after airplanes because I have never been there (RecPlanet Joke). Come on out and have fun.

To contact the ofice please call 312-745-2470.