Buckingham Fountain's Borrowed Legend

On your left, the fountain throwing water more than a hundred feet into the air did not even exist yet when the highway many people assume it marks the start of first opened to traffic.

Buckingham Fountain is often tied to the idea that it marks the starting point of Route sixty six, the historic highway linking Chicago to the Pacific coast. But the timeline does not actually work. Route sixty six was officially established in November of nineteen twenty six. Buckingham Fountain was not dedicated until August of the following year, nineteen twenty seven, roughly eight months later. The fountain and the highway share a neighborhood in popular memory, but they never shared a ribbon cutting.

What the fountain delivers is still genuinely impressive on its own terms. During its full major displays, water surges through one hundred ninety three individual jets arranged around the basin, with the central jet alone capable of shooting a plume more than one hundred fifty feet into the air. Altogether, the system can push upward of fourteen thousand gallons of water every single minute, recycled continuously from the basin rather than drawn fresh from the lake right beside it.

The fountain was a gift to the city from Kate Buckingham, in memory of her brother Clarence, designed purely to be the ornamental centerpiece of Grant Park, gleaming on the lakefront rather than anchoring a highway. So picture it for what it actually is tonight, not mile marker zero of the Mother Road, but one of the largest fountains in the world, built simply to be beautiful, with a legend attached later that just happened to fit.