Oak Woods is the most significant historic cemetery of Chicago's South Side. Buried here are such renowned figures as Mayors Thompson and Washington, crime boss Big Jim Colosimo, Olympian Jesse Owens, civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, and physicist Enrico Fermi. Six thousand Confederate soldiers, prisoners of war who died at Camp Douglas, are buried together beneath a towering monument.

Oak Woods is located at 67th and Cottage Grove, not far from the lake. The cemetery was established in 1854, a full five years before Rosehill and Calvary, but no burials took place until 1860. Originally, the cemetery was beyond the city limits but conveniently close to railroad lines. Chicago annexed the area containing Oak Woods in 1890. In 1893, the World's Columbian Exposition was held only a few blocks north of Oak Woods, in what is now known as Jackson Park.

The grounds include four small lakes. "Symphony Shores", around Symphony Lake, is the most prestigious section with three mayors. Along the southern wall is Jewish Oak Woods, once under separate management but now a part of Oak Woods.