Neighborhood Park Hours: 1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset

Situated in the Historic East Side Neighborhood, this 4-acre park hosts many neighborhood activities. Its mature trees offer relaxing shade and respite from summer heat.

Collyer Neighborhood Park is one of the three original parks in the Chicago-Colorado Colony. It was named after Robert Collyer (1823-1912), a blacksmith’s son born in Yorkshire, England, and grandson of one of Lord Nelson’s sailors at Trafalgar. Collyer immigrated in 1850 and worked in Pennsylvania as a hammer maker and self-educated Methodist preacher. A prolific author and widely traveled speaker, he promoted the movement to Colorado with the idea of building a temperance colony, though he himself never moved west.

Collyer Park was developed around 1871 on a full city block and is 4 acres in size. In 1920, the City built a bandstand in Collyer Park where the high school bands gave weekly concerts in the summer. In 1969, the bandstand was taken down.