Altgeld Gardens was built in 1945 on an abandoned landfill to house returning African American veterans of World War II.

Altgeld Gardens, a neighborhood covering about 190 acres, is located in South Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.  Altgeld Gardens is bordered on the north by 130^th Street, on the south by 134^th Street and the Little Calumet River, on the west by St. Lawrence Avenue, and on the east by the Beaulien Woods Forest Preserve.  Altgeld is located in the Calumet River region of northern Illinois, a marshy land that is key to bird migration. 

The area used to be wetlands, but of the original 20,000 acres, only around 500 acres remain.  At the time Chicago was growing, the land in this area was cheap.  Heavy industry was attracted to the Calumet region for the convenient transportation to the Calumet River and Lake Michigan.  Factories and residential housing was built upon the land after it had been filled in with industrial waste, steel slag, sludge, and  municipal solids.  Slag is the byproduct of the reduction of iron ore and iron to steel.  Sludge is treated and dehydrated sanitary sewage.  
                                                        

The land upon which Altgeld is built is north and west of a wetland area and was reportedly agricultural land before development.  It became an area of industry and the location of such industries as U.S. Steel, The Ford Company, and Pullman Factory.  It has been exposed to the wastes of these industries, as well as the waste the people of Chicago.  There are 100 industrial plants and 50 active or closed waste dumps in the area, and 90% of the city's landfills surround Altgeld Gardens.

Altgeld has about 2,000 housing units on 1400 acres, half of which are currently occupied. Out of a population of nearly 8,000 about 95% are African American and nearly 65% live below poverty level. It is surrounded by 53 toxic facilities and 90% of the cities landfills in a city that has more landfills per square mile than any other U.S. city.

It is one of the densest concentrations of potentially hazardous pollution sources in North America.  Many of the landfills that surround them are unregulated, and some of those are still being used.  Since most of these landfills as well as many industrial plants are located along the waterways surrounding the area, of the 18 miles of rivers and lakes surrounding Altgeld Gardens, 11 miles of them are unfit for human consumption and recreation, though many residents still fish in them citing that “something’s going to kill them anyway.”