Past POIs - Buckingham Fountain [Chicago, Illinois]

In 2014, we made a road trip to Chicago and one of the sites that we stopped at was the Buckingham Fountain. Having watched Married with Children for years as a teenager, I never actually knew where the fountain from the intro sequence was from nor what it was called, now I know both.

Buckingham Fountain

The fountain was donated by Kate Buckingham in memory of her brother, Clarence Buckingham, and was built at the cost of $750,000 in 1927.  Since then more than $3,000,000 was spent on restoring the fountain due to climate and age.

This fountain is located in Grant Park and is quite hard to miss, so do come and have a look if you are near since it is free to see.  Unfortunately when we came, the fountain was not turned on.  The fountain operates from 8:00am - 11:00pm from mid-April to mid-October with regular water shows (every hour on the hour for about 20 minutes) and evening coloured-light shows after dusk.

Buckingham Fountain Sea Horse

The fountain itself is meant to represent Lake Michigan and the four sea horses that surround it symbolize Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, all of which border the lake.

Some interesting stats, the center jet shoots water vertically to 150 ft (46 m).  It contains 1,500,000 gallons (5,700,000 litres) of water.  During the water show, more than 14,000 gallons of water is shot through the jets per minute.

Come back next Friday for another Past Point of Interest.