Roadwork begins Monday on Oak Park Avenue in Chicago’s Dunning neighborhood and city workers could be digging up thousands of buried bodies during the three-month project, according to a cemetery researcher.
The Chicago Tribune reports up to 10,000 bodies were buried along Oak Park Avenue in the 19th and early 20th century, most of whom were unidentified crime victims, criminals, those suffering from poverty or patients who had died at nearby hospitals without appropriate documentation. The surrounding area used to be home to a county insane asylum, tuberculosis hospital, Cook County Almhouse and a potter’s field that later turned into Cook County Cemetery, the publication reports.
Cemetery chairman for the Chicago Genealogical Society Barry Flieg told the Tribune his data shows nearly 7,000 bodies are under the roads blocked off for reconstruction at Oak Park Avenue between Irving Park Road and Forest Preserve Drive.
Ald. Timothy Cullerton, 38th, told the Trib the workers are aware of the possibility of unearthing the bodies and will “proceed with caution.” He said if they come upon them they will call the coroner’s office to plan an appropriate way to relocate them in a respectful matter.
The city’s goal for the project, which will run through July, is to give the street sidewalks, curbs and gutters.
Fleig told the Trib that while he agrees they have to upgrade Oak Park Avenue, he is most concerned about those who were “forgotten in life” will now be “forgotten again as a whole” in the meantime.
