WEST RIDGE — The spirited 6th Annual Rosehill Cemetery Crypt 5K kicks off next week at one of Chicago's oldest, largest and most historic burial grounds.
Participants get a chance to walk or run alongside a candlelit path that swerves through the final resting places of hundreds of (mostly) Union Civil War soldiers, more than a dozen Chicago mayors and famous entrepreneurs including Oscar Mayer, A. Montgomery Ward and Richard Sears.
The cemetery also boasts a number of popular memorials, such as the Lulu Fellows and Frances Pearce Stone glass entombment, which have been featured in films and at times thought to be, among other places in the cemetery, still active with the spirits of the deceased.
Memorials to Jack Brickhouse, John G. Shedd and Leo Burnett are also among the thousands of ornate and detailed monuments and mausoleums (and sometimes deer, too) that decorate the sprawling campus.
The 5K walk/run begins at 7 p.m. Oct. 7 at the cemetery's entrance, 5800 N. Ravenswood Ave., and jogs through the 350-acre grounds, which were first established in 1864.
Registration costs between $34-$38, and participants can choose to be chip-timed or walk/run for fun.
A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Chicago chapter of the American Diabetes Association.
After the event is a post-race dinner party at the Fireside Restaurant, 5739 N. Ravenswood Ave. The meal costs $12 and includes three different entreé options.
The Fireside was originally established to help house and feed those traveling to the cemetery, and has remained one of the neighborhood and city's long-running saloons.
