North Shore Views

Winnetka- Home of the First Jungle Gym

Here’s a little known bit of North Shore trivia: the first-ever Jungle Gym, constructed in 1920, is still being enjoyed by children at Crow Island School on Willow Road in Winnetka.  It was invented and patented by lawyer and Winnetka resident Sebastian Hinton. Apparently Hinton’s father, a mathematician, had built a three-dimensional bamboo frame in their backyard in Japan in order to teach his children about Cartesian-coordinates. But Sebastian and his siblings thought it was just a toy where they could climb and swing like monkeys. As an adult he saw that it could be a fun and space-efficient way to encourage physical development in children and he proposed it to Winnetka school superintendent, Carleton Washburne.

First Jungle Gym Still Stands at Crow Island School in Winnetka

The first prototype was placed at North Shore Country Day School. While it was a big hit with the kids, it also had some design flaws, which needed correcting. A sturdier version was installed at Horace Mann School (where the Post Office now stands).  When the school was demolished in 1940, the apparatus was then moved to Crow Island School, where it still sits on the southeast corner of the school’s playground.

Tags: Crow Island School, North Shore history, Winnetka

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 6:59 pm and is filed under Historic places, Local curiosities, Winnetka. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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