The Ravinia Festival is the oldest outdoor music festival organization in the United States. It’s located in Highland Park, Illinois about 25 miles north of Chicago on the shores of Lake Michigan. My focus on Ravinia stems from my interest in the railway that was the reason for Ravinia’s creation. A.C.Frost, the owner of the Chicago & Milwaukee Electric Railway established Ravinia Park as a destination for riders of the railroad that ran from Chicago to Milwaukee (duh).

It originally had a Casino, amusement park, and grandstand, but when the railway confronted financial problems, bankruptcy, and Ravinia’s existence in 1911, a group of local residents formed an organization to purchase and operate the park. Except for a brief gap during the depression, Ravinia’s run programs from 1904 to the present day ! Artists from Enrico Caruso to Steve Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers have performed there. . . as kids, we’d go there every 4th of July for the fireworks show. . .

In the course of collecting material on the C&ME Railway (later the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee RR) I’d come across these programs and would pick them up in local bookstores and junk shops. It was later, as I got more and more into illustration and comics that I started to recognize some of the artists responsible for designing the program covers. You’ll see the names Hamilton King, Hal Foster, James McCracken, Stark Davis, and intaglio artist Allan Weary. If you recognize any of the other names or unsigned pieces, let us know !

I’ve also included a poster done for the CNS&M railroad in 1925 by Arthur A. Johnson - you’d think that if anything would be misspelled it WOULDN’T be the name of the park itself !

DOH !!