Oak Woods Cemetery

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Confederate Mound

Oak Woods Cemetery was established in 1854 – five years earlier than Rosehill and Calvary – on an area of 74 ha (183 acres) located at 1035 E. 67th Street in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The first burials took place in 1860 and during the American Civil War, six thousand Confederate soldiers, prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas (Chicago), were buried together here in a mass grave. Known as the Confederate Mound (see picture), a monument has been erected in their memory.

[edit] Notable burials

Robert Sengstacke Abbott (1870-1940), newspaper publisher
Cap Anson (1852-1922), Hall of Fame Major League Baseball Player
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), social reformer, civil rights activist
Willa Beatrice Brown (1906-1992), African American aerospace pioneer
James Colosimo (1877-1920), mafioso, "Big Jim" Colosimo
William Craig (1855-1902), first secret Service agent to die on duty
Charles S. Deneen (1863-1940), politician
Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993), composer, the "father of gospel music"
Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), physicist
Jake Guzik (1886-1956), gangster, "Greasy Thumb"
William Draper Harkins (1873-1951), nuclear chemist
Monroe Heath, mayor of Chicago
Charles Johnson (1909-2006), pitcher and outfielder for the Chicago American Giants of the Negro League
John Christen Johansen (1876-1964), portraitist and landscape painter
Kenesaw Mountain Landis (1866-1944), Hall of Fame, First Commissioner of Baseball
Little Brother Montgomery (1906-1985), blues piano player and singer
Jesse Owens (1913-1980), Olympic track and field champion
J. Young Scammon (1812-1890), attorney, banker, newspaper publisher
Roebuck 'Pops' Staples (1915-2000), gospel singer
Bill Veeck (1914-1986), Major League Baseball owner
William Hale Thompson, mayor of Chicago
Harold Washington (1922-1987), lawyer, politician, first African American Mayor of Chicago
Junior Wells (1934-1998), blues musician
James Hutchinson Woodworth, mayor of Chicago
John H. Johnson, founder and publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines.
Eugene Sawyer (1934-2008), second African-American mayor of Chicago (Mayor from 1987-1989).