Graceland Cemetery

Chosen for the 2024 Illinois Reads Program by the Illinois Reading Council

One of Chicago’s landmark attractions, Graceland Cemetery chronicles the city’s sprawling history through the stories of its people. Local historian and Graceland tour guide Adam Selzer presents ten walking tours covering almost the entirety of the cemetery grounds. While nodding to famous Graceland figures from Marshall Field to Ernie Banks to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Selzer also leads readers past the vaults, obelisks, and other markers that call attention to less recognized Chicagoans like:

Jessie Williams de Priest, the Black wife of a congressman whose 1929 invitation to a White House tea party set off a storm of controversy; Engineer and architect Fazlur Khan, the Bangladeshi American who revived the city’s skyscraper culture; The still-mysterious Kate Warn (listed as Warn on her tombstone), the United States’ first female private detective. Filled with photographs and including detailed maps of each tour route, Graceland Cemetery is an insider’s guide to one of Chicago’s great outdoor destinations for city lore and history.