When it was completed in 1916, many considered north side Clarendon Park to be the largest and most practical bathing beaches in the country it lost this status in the 1930s when the Chicago Park District expanded Lincoln Park north to Foster Avenue, eliminating Clarendon’s lake frontage.
While it was a great swimming beach and community center, 16-inch softball players remember Clarendon as the Mecca of softball during the 1950s and ‘60s. if you were a player or a fan, you had to be at Clarendon. Although Clarendon no longer sponsors its own leagues, players and fans will always remember it as softball’s greatest park during what many consider to be softball’s greatest years.