Forest Preserve District of Cook County Records: Quick tips for researchers

Photographs

Visit our page on how to search FPDCC photographs for more information.

Correspondence

Correspondence to and from the FPDCC headquarters can be found in series 1 (Administrative records).

Other series also contain correspondence and internal memoranda.

Property records

See series 2 (Legal Department records), especially in subseries 3 (land acquisition records) and subseries 4 (condemnation proceedings).

Early history of the FPDCC

A large number of documents related to the first 30 years of the FPDCC (around 1900 to late 1930s) have been digitized and can be found online at Cook County Forest Preserve Documents.

See also the online exhibit To Protect and Preserve.

FPDCC outreach and public relations

See series 3 (Records of the Departments of Maintenance and Conservation).

Board of Commissioners of the Forest Preserves of Cook County

For proceedings, annual reports, and other materials related to governance, sees series 4 (Governance).

FPDCC Advisory committee

For meeting minutes, reports, and other materials related to the advisory committee, see series 5 (Planning, Development, and Construction Records), and especially in subseries 3 and 4 of that series.

Blueprints

About 1,100 blueprints are online at Cook County Forest Preserve Blueprints.

See also the following series in the FPDCC finding aid: Series 5, Planning, Development, and Construction records and and Series 6, Construction Blueprints and other large Blueprints.

Newspaper clippings

See series 7 (Newspaper clippings).