Category: Vernacular Art

Bob is the winning identity along Chicago’s Lake Michigan shore, beating out Tom, John, Jim, Bill and even Joe for the most prolific name carved into the rocks there. I’ve counted about 80 Bobs surviving along the lakefront, though there were certainly many more before miles of limestone blocks and their carvings were torn out in the shoreline protection projects of the early 2000s. So let’s celebrate Bobs, wherever they may be. Read more about Chicago’s lakefront carvings.

$40.00 Thousands of magnificent stone carvings lie hidden in plain sight along Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront, a collective work of art and a spontaneous monument to good times by the lake. These carvings are unique in the world and lavishly illustrated in this first book-length treatment. Description One of the world’s most remarkable outdoor art treasures lies hidden in plain sight along Chicago’s Lake Michigan waterfront. Lakefront Anonymous: Chicago’s Unknown Art Gallery tells the story of the thousands of stone carvings by unknown creators that line the city’s shore but have remained mostly invisible to the public. All together it

It took serious ambition to write on the rocks with such fine penmanship. Gold stars to all who left these accomplished inscriptions on the limestone blocks along Chicago’s lakefront.

The gallery on this page displays the handful of rock carvings along the Chicago lakefront whose location I’ve been unable to determine. These were shot on film before the days of GPS and reflect a record-keeping fail. However, I suspect most were from south of Montrose Harbor or the Belmont Rocks. All were lost when the old limestone revetments were torn out. Find lakefront carvings by location.

Most of the roughly 6,300 rock carvings along Chicago’s 26 miles of lakefront parks are clustered in eight main locations, from Calumet Park on the south to Osterman Beach on the north. About 200, however, can be found scattered in other spots. These include four locations where the rocks are still part of the old limestone revetments protecting the Lake Michigan shoreline — Olive Park and the 12th Street, 57th Street and 63rd Street Beaches. Elsewhere the rocks that once lined the shore have been relocated, serving now mostly as decorative elements for lakefront parks. These sites may be scattered,

It’s mostly a mystery who created the rock carvings up and down Chicago’s Lake Michigan shore. But there are exceptions, most notably the life-size mermaid that now resides south of Oakwood Beach around 41st Street. This accomplished but long-anonymous piece of stone carving eventually won recognition for its creators, with the Chicago Sun-Times unraveling its mystery in 2000. She was originally carved a couple blocks north of her current location, in an out-of-the-way spot right on the shoreline at 39th Street. Out of the way was the point: “We were trespassing,” said one of her creators, Roman Villareal, a self-taught