The Forest Park Amusement Park had a relatively short lifespan of only fourteen years, and all fourteen were strife with controversy. To begin, after a few years delay, the Forest Park Amusement Park opened in 1908 under steep resistance from Chicago area church members. (1) The largest concern was its placement located adjacent to Waldheim Cemetery. Protesters are quoted as finding the amusement park a “mercenary scheme showing no respect for the dead, and an utter disregard for the sorrow filling the hearts of the grief stricken.” (2) This was due to rumors that the amusement park would exhume the bodies interned at the local cemetery due to land ordinances. (3) This was publicized in a 1908 Chicago Daily Tribune article titled “Lutherans Fight for Cemeteries.” The article goes on to say that the local churches had prevented a baseball park and a summer garden near the cemeteries in previous years, and would “spend every dollar we can” to do it again. (4) Possibly in part to public scrutiny being so high, and contentious, opening night involved a crowd between 5,000 to 10,000, while the town of forest park only contained 4085 population as of the 1900 census. (5 & 6) While the power outage that occurred later that night was not officially linked to any individual or group, Robert R. McCormick, the president of the Sanitary District of Chicago, cried “sabotage.” (7)