Celebrate the 130th birthday of the Minneapolis park system with me and the Linden Hills History Study Group, April 4, 7 p.m. at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 4201 Sheridan Avenue South. A $3 donation is suggested for those who aren’t members of the study group.

I’ll talk about the greatest accomplishments and most puzzling failures in Minneapolis parks since the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners was created by the Minnesota legislature and approved by Minneapolis voters on April 3, 1883. I’ll touch on many of the people, places and policies that have contributed to the fabulous park system we enjoy today — and I’ll also mention a few parks that might have been.

I hope you’ll join us.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

The dedication of Heffelfinger Fountain in Lyndale Park, 1947. This is the only photo I’ve seen of Theodore Wirth and Francis Gross together. They are joined by an even better-known Minneapolitan. From left: Park Superintendent Emeritus Theodore Wirth, Minneapolis Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey, Park Board President Francis A. Gross, Park Superintendent Charles E. Doell. Wirth was then 84 and Gross 77. The fountain had been discovered and purchased in Italy by Frank Heffelfinger, shipped to Minneapolis, and given to the park board. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

As I began my initial, intensive assault on Minneapolis park history in 2007 to write City of Parks, I was inclined to attribute the great success of our park system to Theodore Wirth — as so many people do. I had heard his name – attached as it was to a park, lake and parkway – for many years, and I promptly read his book on the park system — part history, part memoir.

Theodore Wirth was superintendent of Minneapolis parks for 30 years, 1906-1935. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

It was the beginning of an up-and-down ride for me with Mr. Wirth and his legacy, one that I am reexamining in light of comments by Francis Gross in the autobiography he wrote in 1938.

I knew little about Wirth in 2007, but I did recall vividly being introduced to a Swedish gentleman at a party in Stockholm, Sweden in 1986 who, when he learned where I was from, gushed about what a great park planner Theodore Wirth had been. He knew much more about Wirth than I did and he knew of Wirth not because of any connection between Sweden and Minnesota. Contrary to what you’d expect with all the manifestations of Swedish heritage in Minnesota, I met few Swedes who had the slightest interest in or knowledge of any connection between their country and my state. In that regard, Swedes were not much different from people in England, Spain or Fredonia. This was also true of the gentleman who spoke so highly of Wirth; his knowledge grew solely from professional interest, untainted by any bonds of kinship with Minnesotans.

At the same party, I had another memorable conversation. I spoke at length with a young U. S. Marine from St. Paul, Clayton Lonetree, who told me he hoped to join the CIA one day. Lonetree was in Stockholm on temporary duty providing security for American diplomats attending an international conference. His regular duty was providing security at American diplomatic missions. He was stationed in Vienna then, but had previously been detailed to the U. S. Embassy in Moscow. Lonetree intimated to me that he had already been involved in some cloak and dagger stuff, which had whetted his appetite for a career of it. His comments struck a discordant note, something with his story was off. I had worked with Marines and representatives of intelligence agencies in four years as a Foreign Service Officer in American embassies. I knew a bit about the interactions among people in embassies and what Lonetree told me didn’t fit. His comments were puzzling enough to me that I commented on my feelings later that night to a friend in the American intelligence community.

A few months later, back in Minneapolis, I was astonished to read in my morning Trib that Lonetree had been arrested for espionage for his activities while in Moscow. He was accused of being manipulated by a Soviet girlfriend into allowing her “uncle”, a KGB operative, to gain access to the Embassy and classified information.  I was enthralled by the coverage of the case and recalled my own unease — with a hint of pride in sensing something amiss — with Lonetree.

I was even more surprised a few months later when I received a call from the Naval Investigative Service (not Jethro LeRoy Gibbs) asking to interview me about my conversation with Lonetree many months earlier. I met Special Agent Not Gibbs in a downtown Minneapolis hotel and recalled what I could of a party conversation. I never did find out how they learned of my exchange with Lonetree; my friend in intelligence insisted he had not reported my comments about Lonetree.

The saga continued when I received a call from an investigator working for Lonetree’s civilian defense attorney, William Kunstler, telling me they wanted me to testify at Lonetree’s court-martial in Quantico, Virginia. I never was called to testify because Kunstler decided not to call any defense witnesses. It appeared to me that Kunstler was grandstanding, making his own political statement at the expense of his client.

I was spared the drama of testifying at an espionage trial, and Lonetree was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was paroled after serving nine years. I never did quite understand how his defense team thought my testimony could help him. I had no facts to give really, just a vague disquiet at the young man’s inflated claims.

What in Charles Loring’s name does Clayton Lonetree have to do with Theodore Wirth?

The connection between my conversation about one man and with another on the same night 21 years earlier four thousand miles from Minneapolis was that as I began to dig more deeply into Minneapolis park history in 2007 I became more and more uneasy with many of the claims made about Wirth’s contributions to Minneapolis parks. Without in any way equating the admirable career of Wirth with the dishonorable actions of Lonetree, something about those claims for Wirth’s accomplishments was oddly skewed. I felt something akin to listening to Clayton Lonetree talk about espionage. Uneasy. More and more skeptical. I knew that not all of the claims about Wirth’s career were made by Wirth himself. Many people over many years had made claims about Wirth that were not completely accurate. But Wirth did contribute at times to the inflation of his own accomplishments.

An example. In the annual reports prepared under Wirth’s direction, he often included comparative maps that showed the Minneapolis park system at various stages. For instance in 1910, he included a map of the park system as proposed by H. W. S. Cleveland in 1883, as it was in 1888, then as it stood in 1905 and 1910. In 1917, he again compared the maps of parks in 1883, 1888, 1905 and 1917. By 1923 he simply compared the maps of 1905 and 1923. He did the same in 1930: 1905 v. 1930. Now the year 1905 was in no way significant in Minneapolis park history in terms of park acquisition or development. Comparing any year to 1905 was quite irrelevant except for one fact: it was the year before Wirth became superintendent. By comparing Minneapolis parks in 1905 to any later year was the equivalent of Wirth saying, “Hey, look what I did.” Apart from demonstrating an egotism that I didn’t find appealing, there was a willingness, even eagerness, to take credit for something he really didn’t deserve credit for.

The claims that the park system tripled in acreage under Wirth’s superintendency is often cited as a measure of his achievement. In one way, it is. He had to manage a far larger park system after thirty years than when he was hired. To his enormous credit, he managed it well. But to make the leap that he was responsible for the increase in park acreage is wholly without justification. The park land acquired while Wirth was superintendent were partly due to longstanding plans and hopes, the growth of the city, and the changing demands on a park system, especially the demand for athletic fields. He was a passenger on that train, not the engineer. Not even the conductor.

Another example. Wirth makes a great deal of his taking down “Keep off the grass” signs in parks and his promotion of playgrounds. He did take those signs down, but it was not revolutionary or even new to Minneapolis. The man who was responsible for hiring Wirth in 1905, Charles Loring, had been advocating taking down those protective signs for years. An association to promote playgrounds in the city had also been created seven years before Wirth arrived in Minneapolis (by Loring and William Folwell among others). Yet it was when Wirth was hired as park superintendent that for the first time those leaders began to see the park board, not an independent playground board, as the proper authority to develop playgrounds. Again, the idea was not Wirth’s, and while part of the implementation was, he tends to get credit for the whole concept.

On a related topic, Wirth is often cited for advocating the placement of a playground within a quarter-mile of every home in the city. I can find no evidence that he ever advocated such a position. That position was, to my knowledge, first attributed to him in the autobiography of his son, Conrad, which was written in 1980, 31 years after the father’s death. (Conrad Wirth was the Director of the National Park Service.) The placement of a playground within easy walking distance of residences was actually a standard developed by the National Recreation Association, a standard that Minneapolis was chastised for not meeting during Wirth’s superintendency (1914) and after (1944).

Even in his treatment of the creation of Victory Memorial Drive, Wirth emphasizes his own role, while William Folwell gives most of the credit for the project to Charles Loring who personally put up the money for the memorial trees on the parkway, as well as their perpetual care. We do know from architect William Purcell’s notebooks that Loring had been considering commissioning a monument of some kind to veterans a decade before World War I, which tends to corroborate Loring’s central role. Perhaps due to my gnawing distrust of Wirth’s perspective or memory, I put greater stock in Folwell’s version of events than Wirth’s. Wirth was 82 when he wrote his book, Folwell was in his 90s when he completed Volume 4 of his History of Minnesota, the volume that salutes Loring as the “Apostle of Parks.” I suppose either man could be suspected of memory lapses at their ages, but I have also seen Folwell’s incredibly detailed notes for his book at the Minnesota Historical Society.

My suspicions mounted that Wirth was credited with other accomplishments that at the very least he should have shared with others. Further evidence of that came with a chance discovery that the mother of a close friend, Minneapolis attorney Peter Beck, was the niece of Louis Boeglin and lived with Boeglin and his wife on the shores of Glenwood Lake in summers when she was a girl. Boeglin was hired by Wirth in 1906 to be the first florist of Minneapolis parks. Boeglin remained with the park board as horticulturist until the 1940s. Catherine Beck showed me several documents and photos of Boeglin, who was an accomplished florist and gardener, and planted and tended the Minneapolis park gardens — Rose Garden, Armory Garden, Perennial Garden, Rock Garden — that are considered among the notable achievements of Theodore Wirth. She also related that in her family’s stories her uncle got much less credit than he deserved for the floral decoration of Minneapolis parks. That seemed to me consistent with what I had learned about Wirth and his tenure as park superintendent. It was not exactly a lie that Wirth did those things — they did occur on his watch — but it wasn’t exactly true that he did them either.

I could go on — and might some day. The bottom line is that I began to seriously question Wirth’s stature in Minneapolis lore. He was obviously an able manager of parks — although even there, some people credited his lieutenant and successor as superintendent, Chris Bossen, for keeping the parks running smoothly. I wondered if Wirth had become a legendary figure simply by outliving those with whom he shared the credit for developing Minneapolis parks. He who dies last can best shape history, especially if the longest-lived are inclined, as I believed Wirth was, to take credit, or at least allow others to give credit, where it may not have been fully due.

I’ll admit that I finally got to the point that I didn’t like Theodore Wirth much. In writing City of Parks, I tried very hard to be fair to Wirth and give him credit for what he did do, without diminishing those accomplishments by crediting him with things he did not do. I think I succeeded in that, while also conveying my sense that the vision for Minneapolis parks came largely from Charles Loring, Horace Cleveland and William Folwell long before Loring recruited Wirth to the scene. I always considered Wirth more the craftsman than the artist.

The beauty of studying and writing about history, however, is that over time much of what we learn is challenged and revised. That’s one reason I’ve stuck to writing about Minneapolis park history on this blog; there’s always more to learn, the story is never fully told.

The Autobiography of Francis A. Gross

That was my state of thinking on Wirth when I learned less than a year ago that Francis Gross had written an autobiography in 1938 and that his great-grandson had it in his possession and was willing to share a copy with me.

Francis A. Gross, 1918 Annual Report of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners

I was very curious to learn if Gross, who was a park commissioner for 33 years between 1910 and 1949 and served 14 years as the president of the park board, had written anything about the park board and, especially, about Theodore Wirth. In contrast to my generally negative perceptions of Theodore Wirth, I had developed a fondness for Gross during months of research. I was particularly impressed by his thoughtful views of the city’s changing needs and the desirability of more recreation facilities in the city’s poorer neighborhoods, which had been overlooked by the park board for many years while Wirth was superintendent.

My favorite quote from Gross comes from his 1945 annual report: “In spite of our professed principles of human justice, we still do not have equal opportunities in all quarters. The most satisfying argument for equal recreational opportunities for all remains the simple one of human justice.”

So I was delighted to find that Gross did indeed write a few pages about Wirth in his autobiography. I knew that Wirth and Gross had been friends and that they shared the bond of being German speakers. Still, I was struck by Gross’s high praise for Wirth.

“In securing Mr. Wirth’s services, the city of Minneapolis was most fortunate. He soon proved himself a park man of the greatest ability. A very determined and progressive person. This combined with his thoro knowledge of park building in all its branches, and his plans therefore that gave the maximum of service to the people, made him the ideal man to take these many acres of rough and swampy land that had been acquired by Minneapolis and to make of them a thing of beauty and service…That the parks must serve the people was always uppermost in his mind. That the people have the health-giving benefits of the out-of-doors and the joy of beautiful surrounds for their recreation was his supreme desire.”

Gross had more to say about Wirth.

“Soon after I became a member of the park board I recognized the great ability and the fine and truly public-spirited character he possessed. My admiration for him was great and he soon had my fullest confidence. The longer the time I was associated with him, the more he imbued in me the idea of the necessity, importance and value of parks and recreation for the welfare of a city and its people. As I had a willingness to give a part of my time for service to my home town to compensate for the privilege of my citizenship in it, I soon decided that the work of building and directing an efficient park and recreation system for the people of Minneapolis, was most to my liking. The principal factor that caused me to give the many years of service in this public office that I have was Mr. Wirth’s great ability, fine leadership and his loyal and friendly character. My association with Mr. Wirth also gave me a very dear friend, a friendship that put much happiness into my life.”

I still dislike the fact that Wirth is given credit for things he didn’t do and those who sometimes deserve credit don’t get it, but I’m willing to look at Wirth in a more favorable light as a person after reading those passages from Frank Gross. I thank Mr. Gross for that.

I read nothing in Frank Gross’s book that diminished my high regard for him. He concluded his chapter on his park work with these words.

“My long career in the work of parks and recreation has been of much satisfaction to me. It has given me the feeling that I have contributed my share to my home and city and thereby met my obligation to it.”

Judging from a distance of many years, I would have to concur. Many times over.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Don’t forget the 130th birthday of Minneapolis parks with the Linden Hills History Study Group and me. “Highlights, Lowlights and Undsolved Mysteries: 130 Years of Parks in Minneapolis,” April 4, 7:00 p.m., St. John’s Episcopal Church, 4201 Sheridan Avenue South.

© David C. Smith

How did the cherished toys of one generation become scary to their great-grandchildren?

This photo raises the question. Doll buggy parades were big events at parks decades ago, especially in the 1930s. I’ve seen several photos of such events, some as recent as the 1970s. Yet, I’ve seen girls of today react very negatively to pictures of old dolls like these. They find them creepy. But aren’t these dolls more realistic and less creepy than many of the “fashion” dolls that girls play with now?

Dolls on parade at Powderhorn Park, 1926 (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

Cool buggies, too. But with no children in sight? Yeah, they really are kinda creepy. The dolls look better with kids in the picture.

This Minneapolis Tribune photo from 1934, which includes girls from an unidentified park, is more appealing. (Minneapolis Photo Collection, Hennepin County Library)

Do you remember these events? Do you still have the dolls?

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

I don’t want to overdo the Stone Arch Bridge, but will run that risk with this photo found by Andrew Caddock at the park board. I showed the picture recently to a group of local history buffs and asked for guesses on when it was taken. Guesses ranged mostly from 1930-1960s. The real answer is ….

View from the Stone Arch Bridge. Click for larger image. (Jim Keane, Riverfront News)

…1980. Not that long ago.

The piles of sand and aggregate in front of the old mills were used to make concrete and were owned by Shiely Co. The materials  were mixed on site and used in downtown construction projects; the sand and gravel could be transported at much lower cost by barge than by truck. The company first used the area for aggregate storage when it was making the concrete to build the upper lock and dam — on the right of the bridge – which was completed in 1965. Train traffic on the Stone Arch Bridge had stopped a couple of years before this photo was taken.

The photo appeared in the December 1980 issue of Riverfront News, a publication of the Minneapolis Riverfront Coordination Board, which included representatives of the major agencies of Minneapolis government.

The land under the sand piles is now Mill Ruins Park. The Guthrie Theater would be near the left edge of the photo

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Let’s go down to the river one more time. I have many favorite pictures of the riverfront when it was the economic engine of Minneapolis, but this is probably at the top of my list.

The west bank of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis, just below St. Anthony Falls, in 1885. (Minnesota Historical Society)

You can see just a dash of the still-new Stone Arch Bridge on the right margin of the photo. The channel here is all tail race — the water that ran out of the mills after generating power.

My favorite part of this photo though is the trestle and railroad tracks that ran between the mills and the river at essentially the level of city streets. Those tail races coming out of the mills are now a part of Mill Ruins Park. The trestle and tracks are gone, but I don’t know when they were torn down. Anybody?

Below are two shots (a 3-for-1 Friday Photo!, the biggest Friday Photo discount ever) of the tail races as they appeared probably in the 1950s.

Tail races, some of which are now visible in Mill Ruins Park. (MPRB)

A closer look at the trail races and water returning to the river after its work was done. (MPRB)

Both photos are undated. They show the water coming out of the tail races. They give a much better sense of the management of water power. I’m not sure of the functions of structures and workers at this point in the water power process.

These structures were razed and covered when the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam was built in the 1960s.

For a marvelous 360-degree panorama of Mill Ruins Park and the adjacent lock and dam go here, courtesy of the National Park Service. Learn much more about the lock and dam — one of the biggest mistakes Minneapolis and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers ever made — at the pages of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.

Have a look around the park — if spring ever comes. The transformation is amazing — and thought-provoking.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© Copyright 2013

Given several comments and questions about last Friday’s photos of the Mississippi River and the tail races from the west side mills, I’ll post several more photos that I was saving for an article specifically about Spirit Island. To my knowledge, Spirit Island was never considered as a potential park.

Once airplanes became more common and aerial photography developed, we were able to get better pictures of layouts of complex places like the milling district of Minneapolis and how the river was configured. The photo below from about 1925 shows the relationship of the tail races and the spit of land between the tail race channel and the main channel.

The configuration of mills, tail races, and falls in 1920s. Note that there is no surface flow of water from above the falls into the tail race channel to the left of the Stone Arch Bridge. (Minneapolis Collection, Hennepin County Library)

The photo I posted Friday was shot, I believe, from the lower end of that land between channels, at the bottom of this photo, not Spirit Island.

This photoprint dated 1890 shows the relationship of Spirit Island with the land visible above. Spirit Island appears to be considerably further out into the main channel of the river.

Spirit Island, right, appears to be much further into the main channel of the river than the land separating the main channel from the tail race channel coming in from the left in this image. (Minnesota Historical Society)

These photos of Spirit Island show the changes in the island over thirty years.

Spirit Island, 1899 (Minnesota Historical Society)

Spirit Island, 1920s (Charles Gibson, Minnesota Historical Society)

A second photo from the same date in 1899 as the one above, May 27, shows more clearly the makeshift bridge to Spirit Island and the people and horse teams on the island when the photo was taken.

Spirit Island, 1899. Note the people and horses that have apparently crossed on a bridge to the island. (Minnesota Historical Society)

The presence of the horse teams makes me think the limestone on the island was quarried, which led to the much lower profile of the island in the 1920s.

Spirit Island didn’t change much from the 1920s to the 1950s. (Fairchild Aerial Surveys)

Spirit Island appears not to have changed much from the 1920s to 1955 when this photo was taken by Fairchild Aerial Surveys. The lower lock at the bottom of the picture appears to be under construction, but the upper lock was not yet begun. The lower lock was completed in 1956.

The last photo also answers an earlier question about when the railroad trestles on the west side milling district were torn down: before 1955. They are not visible here. All tracks except the two crossing the Stone Arch Bridge appear to pass behind the mills.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

Since posting a few Spirit Island photos, I pulled two more from the website of the Minnesota Historical Society. For any research on Minnesota history, the MHS collection is always a great place to start.

Just to be clear, Spirit Island no longer exists. It was destroyed completely when the Upper St. Anthony Lock and Dam was built in the early 1960s.

The destruction of Spirit Island. (Minnesota Historical Society)

In the photo above, it appears that the limestone cap on Spirit Island has been shattered, but not removed. The bridge in the background is the 10th St. Bridge. The land in the foreground is that land between the west side tail races and the main channel of the river. This is a puzzling photo because it doesn’t appear as if the limestone has been quarried or cut. It appears to have collapsed. Was the limestone undercut by a flood, instead of man? If it had been done intentionally, why was the limestone left?

Frank O’Brien, a Minneapolis newspaperman, claims that it was done by man. In an article in the Minneapolis Tribune, January 7, 1900, he relates that within the memory of pioneers still living then, Spirit Island had extended all the way to St. Anthony Falls. His article was illustrated by a photo of St. Anthony Falls from the 1860s by A. H. Beal, whom he described as a “pioneer photographer..now of Los Angeles, Cal.”

O’Brien notes that the photo was taken from Spirit Island,

“That beauty spot of nature which has so recently disappeared by the uncompromising hand of man, to make room for the (paddle) wheels of progress.”

The last limestone being removed from Spirit Island. (Minnesota Historical Society)

This photo leaves no doubt. The limestone is being removed. Someone went to the trouble of putting a track out to the island, instead of what appear to be planks in the photos I posted earlier today. I can’t tell from this photo if that track ran to the west bank or the spit of land between the tail race and the river.

The Minnesota Historical Society lists the dates of the two photos as “ca. 1895.” However, because two of the photos posted earlier had the precise date of May 27, 1899 and Spirit Island appeared to be intact in those photos, I  would place the date of the first photo above at 1899 or later.

The second photo appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune, May 6, 1900 and was attributed to the “Tribune Staff Photographer.” The caption reads:

“Cutting away Spirit Island, one of the landmarks in the vicinity of the Falls, to make room for improvements.”

The newspaper does not make clear what “improvements” were anticipated. And note that the photo appeared four months after Frank O’Brien claimed that the island had recently “disappeared.” Obviously, there is more to the story.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

One of the lesser-known park heroes in Minneapolis history left us with inspiring advice — for both citizens and park commissioners. His most memorable words come from his writing in park board annual reports when he was the president of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners 1915-1917. His most enduring actions to create parks and preserve nature’s beauty, however, had nothing to do with Minneapolis. We would honor his service to the state and city if we maintained more thoughtfully the park named for him.

Julius Caesar enriched the common people of Rome by bequeathing to them all his parks and gardens. The people of Minneapolis do not need await the death of an Emperor to enjoy such treasures. They possess them in their own rights. Every man or woman that walks beneath the refreshing shade, or treads the green grass of our parks, or rides upon their sparkling waters, or listens to strains of enchanting music in an environment of nature’s beauty — every boy and girl that gains health of body and mind within our playgrounds — every one of these can proudly say, “These parks are mine; I am joint owner of all these splendors.”
– Portius C. Deming, President, Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners, 1915 Annual Report

Portius C. Deming, 1916. Lofty hair, too. (MPRB)

Portius C. Deming was a realtor and insurance agent — the two professions went hand-in-hand in the years Minneapolis grew the fastest in the late 1800s. Deming lived on the corner of 23rd Ave. NE and Central Avenue and had his office a block away on the other side of the street. He was one of the men who helped put together the proposal for the park board to acquire what became Columbia Park in northeast Minneapolis in 1892. He was 38 at the time.

The creation  of a large park, which included part of Sandy Lake, was certainly in Deming’s long-term business interest, although he was not a large landowner in the vicinity of the park and residential development had not reached within several blocks of the new park at the time. Most of the land near the park had not yet been platted into residential lots — and the Shoreham railroad yard was already quite extensive to the south of the new park. While sprawling railroad yards have never been converted into attractive scenery, the yard did provide the jobs that would support the construction of new houses, new businesses, and a flourishing community north of what was commonly called “New Boston” in northeast Minneapolis.

Still, as a business leader and realtor, Deming certainly would have appreciated the benefit to the city of a large park beside the only significant body of water in that part of the city. And William Folwell had argued convincingly for such a park only a year earlier when he applied the term “Grand Rounds” to the linked system of parks he supported.

Deming was elected to the park board in the fall of 1894 after he won the Republican Party nomination for the seat over the incumbent president of the park board, J. A. Ridgway. Ridgway would later become the secretary to the Board, a full-time position, a job he held for more than 20 years. (Deming’s wife was the niece of Adin Austin, one of the original 12 park commissioners when the Minneapolis park board was created in 1883.) Deming did not complete his six-year term as park commissioner, because he was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in November 1898. He had to relinquish his park board position when he took his seat in the House in January 1899.

It took very little time for Deming to make an impact in the House and leave a profound mark on the state.

Deming Lake

Driving north on Highway 71 about twenty miles beyond Park Rapids, you reach the southern entrance to Itasca State Park. You’ve already passed so many lakes since Park Rapids — Fishhook, Portage, Little Mantrap, Eagle, Island — not to mention “Christmas World”, and you are so eager to get to Lake Itasca and the slippery stones that create a path across the lake’s outlet stream, the modest beginning of the Mighty Mississippi, that you probably don’t notice the third lake on your left after you enter the park: Josephine, Arco, Deming. Yep, Deming as in Portius C. The lake once named “Danger”, was renamed to honor the legislator from Minneapolis who adroitly managed the passage of a law in 1899 that appropriated the first money for the state to buy private land within the 35 square miles that had been designated Itasca State Park in 1891.

The legislatures of Minnesota and the United States had already contributed the land they owned within the park boundary, and the railroads cut generous deals to convey their lands to the park, but about 8,000 acres still remained in private hands in a patchwork within the park boundaries, including several tracts bordering Lake Itasca itself. Deming and others believed that the additional land had to be acquired by teh state before it was clear-cut of its majestic white pines. A “Stumpage State Park” had little appeal, particularly as a setting for the source of the continent’s mightiest river.

The “Deming Law”, which appropriated $20,000 for land purchases, didn’t end battles between park proponents and the lumber companies over rights to cut pine, create lumber roads across public park land, and dam Lake Itasca to float the lumber down the Mississippi River to Minneapolis saw mills. But it did establish a precedent and legal justification for action.

One of the great stories in Minnesota park history is how Mary Gibbs, in 1903, confronted the lumbermen and opened the dam they had built on the Mississippi River that was flooding the shores of Lake Itasca. Gibbs was the acting commissioner of Itasca State Park at age 24 after the previous commissioner, her father, died. She was quickly stopped from upholding state law by a local judge and promptly replaced by Governor Van Sant with someone more malleable to lumbering interests. Still, the young woman who had the integrity and courage to take on powerful interests is an inspiration. The visitors center in the park at the headwaters of the Mississippi is named for her.

Lake Itasca as log reservoir, 1903. (Illustrated History of Itasca State Park)

Despite the efforts of Deming, Gibbs and others like them, lumber companies opposed preservation efforts in the park effectively for many years. But Deming and Gibbs made a critical contribution to protecting natural resources, a forward-thinking effort that continues to provide  benefits today.

For the in-depth story of efforts to protect the park, and Deming’s role, read the Illustrated History of Itasca State park by Jacob V. Brower here. Note whose picture is on the cover of this edition of the Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. You can’t mistake the high hair of Portius C. Deming. That book is also the source of his signature.

From Park to Parole

Deming’s influence as a legislator was also significant as an advocate for the University of Minnesota, but the other piece of legislation with which his name is linked is the bill passed in 1901 providing for the possibility of parole for convicts with life sentences. The “Deming Bill” is also referred to as the “Youngers’ Bill”, because its practical effect was to provide for the parole of two infamous residents of Stillwater Prison who had been model prisoners for 25 years: Cole and Jim Younger.

The Younger brothers had been captured after the notorious robbery of the Northfield Bank by the James-Younger Gang in 1876. Cole and Jim Younger entered a plea of  ”guilty” in 1876 to the bank robbery and murder of a bank clerk to avoid the death penalty.  If they had pleaded “not guilty” and been convicted, they could have been executed — and I don’t believe anyone, including them, ever claimed they hadn’t committed the robbery, although accounts of the robbery suggest they did not shoot the clerk. Another brother, Bob, also plead guilty to the charges, but died in Stillwater prison of tuberculosis in 1889. Following the passage of Deming’s Parole Bill, written solely for humanitarian purposes, the Youngers were paroled. (The only other prisoner who met the strict conditions of the bill was an old man who refused parole because he had been in prison so long he no longer knew anyone outside of prison and had no means to support himself. Prison was his home.) Jim Younger committed suicide a year after his release. Cole Younger returned to his Missouri home and lived until 1916.

The results of a quick search revealed only one other especially interesting piece of legislation sponsored by Deming. In 1903, he sought a legislative appropriation of $5,000 for victims of a famine in Sweden, Norway and Finland — an unusual venture into international relations. The bill did not pass.

As president of the park board, Deming presided over the dedication of The Gateway in 1915. He also commanded the podium at the dedication of two other memorials that year, one to Thomas Lowry at Virgina Triangle; the other to Gunnar Wennerburg at Minnehaha Park. (MPRB)

President of the Park Board

After three sessions in the legislature, Deming stepped away from politics for a few years until he was tapped by the Minneapolis park board in November 1909 to complete the unexpired term of park commissioner Milton Nelson, who had resigned. The other candidate nominated to fill Nelson’s post was a young banker from north Minneapolis, Francis A. Gross. While Deming prevailed in that selection process, Gross was elected by park commissioners to fill another unexpired term a few months later in May 1910. With a few interruptions, Gross served on the park board into the 1940s.

Following the expiration of the partial term that he was selected to fill, Deming stood for popular election for another term and during that term was elected President of the park board by his fellow commissioners for 1915 and 1916.

Deming’s focus as a park commissioner is not associated with any particular park developments, although the decade of his second stint on the board was an extremely productive time in Minneapolis park history: the lakes were linked with canals, land for the northern half of the Grand Rounds was acquired and the parkways partially completed, the Lake Calhoun bathhouse was constructed, Glenwood (Wirth) Park was developed, the land around Lake Nokomis was acquired and development began, the John Deere Webber Baths at Camden (Webber) Park were built, and playgrounds and neighborhood parks became an important focus. During this period, parks also became accepted as the appropriate venue for active, athletic recreation and the park board began to provide extensive athletic facilities for the first time, including the Logan Park field house.

The plaque set in a boulder in Deming Heights Park.

Portius Deming’s service to his city as a park commissioner ended in 1919 when he was 65. His place in park history was commemorated shortly after his death in 1930 when a ten-acre park commanding one of the highest points in Minneapolis, Grandview Park astride St. Anthony Parkway in northeast Minneapolis, was renamed Deming Heights.

Beyond a lake, a park and a plaque, we have Deming’s words to remember him by.  I find especially appealing the excerpt quoted to open this article and the last paragraph he wrote for the 1915 Annual Report:

The story of the Board’s work for these past thirty-three years is impressed upon our City as upon on open book. Representing the whole people, this Body has conscientiously striven to do equal justice to all, to develop the park system in an equitable relation to the whole city, ever remembering the diverse uses for which parks are demanded and created. It has aimed to carry the opportunity for outdoor rest and recreation to every locality; it has acknowledged the supreme duty of acquiring and reserving for all the people the God-given lakes and streams, which are the City’s grandest heritage. This open book now presents to us an unwritten page. May it be as worthily filled as those which have preceded it.
– Portius C. Deming, 1915 Annual Report

Deming Heights

Deming Heights is — or could be — one of the most charming places in the Minneapolis park system. From the top of the hill – surpassed in elevation in all of Minneapolis only by a point a few blocks northeast near Waite Park — one can see a great distance in three directions.  The only problem with the park is that it’s not nearly as spectacular as it should be.

The view from Deming Heights — without leaves. The downtown Minneapolis skyline is out there — somewhere.

If ever there were a place where some discretion should be used in cutting trees it is here. Why put parks on the highest ground with the most splendid views if we allow trees and brush to obscure the views we purchased? Especially when most of the trees obscuring that view are not the most desirable tree species and some are simply invaders. Can we not cut a tree of any kind? Much of the brush growing on the side of the hill should be cleared as well.

The stairway and path up Norwegian Hill.

I don’t even mind the dilapidated railing along the best staircase in the city. It has its own charm. But clear the brush and trim a few trees. Part of the park was purchased specifically to remove buildings that blocked the view from the crest of the hill. Now we allow scraggly trees to do what we would not let houses do.

Fill in some leaves and there’s no view at all. Might as well be Deming Flats.

The park board has wonderful gardeners and foresters. They could make this view spectacular. Let’s let them. Something worthy of Portius C. Deming. If they need a hand clearing brush, I’ll help. My tribute to Mr. Deming.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© David C. Smith 2013

The closest thing to time travel. That’s what today’s photo recommendation gives you through more than 100,000 photos that allow you to track the growth of Minneapolis — and the rest of the state — from the sky.

I’m not aware of any larger local source of aerial photography than Minnesota Historical Aerial Photos Online (MHAPO). The collection is part of the John Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota. It was created by Joseph Koeller in consultation with the Borchert Library staff.

I’ve written before of the Borchert Map Library because I use their maps often, especially their plat maps of Minneapolis from 1892 and 1903, which I have on my “favorites” bar on my computer.

While researching the history of the auto tourist camp, which the park board operated at Minnehaha Falls from 1920s into the mid-1950s, I wanted to get some sense of the layout of the 35 cabins that were offered for rent on a nightly basis. I had never found any depiction of the layout of the camp until I found this photo from October 1953 at the MHAPO site. See the U-shape of dark dots on the bluff to the left of the Ford Dam? Gotta be those cabins. It’s the Wabun picnic area now. I’ll be writing more about the tourist camp soon.

For more recent aerial photos of many parts of Minneapolis and the metropolitan area, I  go to the University of Minnesota’s Digital Content Library. Below are two photos from that collection using the search term “Minnehaha Park.” They provide a marvelous way to track changes in the landscape. The only shortcoming of this superb collection of images is that they are not dated.

Long ago you could drive up to the edge of Minnehaha Falls. You could watch the falls from your car. A park drive passed between the falls and the pavilion with the red roof.

After the 1992 renovation of the park, the parking lot was moved away from Minnehaha Falls and cars could no longer drive right to the edge of the gorge. The former parking lot was replaced by the garden in this picture, which features some verses from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha”, to which the Falls owed its world-wide renown.

Note that both photos were taken before Hiawatha Avenue was expanded and put under a land bridge at Minnehaha Parkway (upper right corner of the photos) in the 1990s. Had the Minnesota highway department had its way, the horizontal stretch of green near the top of the picture would have become an elevated freeway in the 1960s. The Minneapolis park board went all the way to the U. S. Supreme Court in a successful effort to block that freeway. That is an important story of true park heroes, such as Robert Ruhe, Walter Carpenter, Ed Gearty and others, which I hope to tell in greater detail soon.

Some of the photos and maps in the Digital Content Library collection require login to see more than a thumbnail, but many permit viewing in greater detail by the general public.

It’s worth noting that both the Borchert and Digital Content Library collections are the product of our state university – a demonstration that all of us can benefit from the presence of a major university in our community. Our taxes at work! Yeah, I complain about taxes too, but things like parks and libraries and universities and historical societies contribute enormously to the richness of our lives. My life anyway. Nearly all the resources I draw on to produce these articles are public resources. They are available to all without charge. They are an important part of our heritage — and, I hope, our legacy.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© David C. Smith 2013

Funny that in all the debate a few years ago about the football “stadium” for DeLaSalle High School on Nicollet Island, I don’t recall seeing the photo below of the island in 1947. I discovered this photo in Borchert Library’s Minnesota Historical Aerial Photos Online that I wrote about last week.

Nicollet Island clearly had a baseball field adjacent to the high school long before the park board acquired much of the island.

Detail of Nicollet Island, 1947, with a baseball field in the middle. For the full image go here, then click on the green push-pin north of Nicollet Island. (John R. Borchert Map Library, University of Minnesota)

I do recall great distress caused by the possibility of closing “historic” Grove Street across the center of the island in order to install the football field. But no one mentioned then that the eastern half of Grove Street that was to be closed had been historically (among other things) the left field fence of a baseball field. I had no idea. The things you learn from photos.

The photo demonstrates that some claims from both sides of the football field argument were wrong. Those who opposed the field in part for fear of losing a historic street were more than 60 years late to that argument. On the other hand, those who claimed that DeLaSalle, in its 100-year history, had never had a home athletic field were wrong, too. Maybe they didn’t have a football field to call home, although it looks as though one might have been squeezed in there in the ’40s, but they obviously did have a home baseball field at one time.

For the earliest plans for a park on Nicollet Island see previous posts on Horace Bushnell, the first European to suggest it, and the first ideas for parks upriver from St. Anthony Falls.

I don’t know who actually owned or maintained the field in the 1940s. Something to investigate. Some old “D” yearbooks must have more photos.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

Alfred Fisk Pillsbury is probably best known for three things in Minnesota other than his “Best XXXX” flour-making name.

One, he was a major contributor to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. The renown of MIA’s Chinese collection is due in large part to Pillsbury bequeathing his personal collection of bronzes and jades to the museum. He had a good eye in addition to deep pockets.

Two, he played for eight University of Minnesota Gophers football teams 1886-1893. That’s right, eight! As long as a student was working toward a degree in those days, he was eligible to compete on a university’s athletic teams. Earned your degree? No problem! Pursue another, stay eligible. So young Pillsbury — “Pilly” to fans and sportswriters — twice captain of the team and, literally, the owner of the team’s only football his freshman year, went from undergraduate courses to law school. Eight years, six as the team’s QB!

Alfred F. Pillsbury (first row, far left) with the 1888 Gophers. This was the third year of his eight year career at the University of Minnesota. He was captain of the 1887 and 1889 teams. He began his playing days in 1886 as a lineman, but at only 142 pounds he was soon shifted to quarterback. He was not as small as it would seem by today’s standards; players who weighed 200 pounds were considered gigantic then. Don’t you love those lace-up shirts? They were made of canvas to provide some protection and elusiveness. It was hard to get hold of the snug-fitting canvas.

His eighth year on the team is a bit mysterious. Most sources, including the History of Minnesota Football, published in 1928 by the General Alumni Association of the University of Minnesota, claim Pilly’s football playing days ended in 1892. John Hayden writes in a chapter titled “The Early Days”: “For long and creditable performance no one has surpassed Alf. Pillsbury. He played good football on the first team, in 1886, and on successive teams until 1892, when he completed his law course.”

But it seems as if Pilly had one game left in him. The Minneapolis Tribune’s account of the Gophers’ 40-0 thrashing of the Wisconsin Badgers — the biggest game of the year — on November 11, 1893 describes several Pillsbury plays as a halfback that day. He scored two touchdowns. A drawing that illustrates the story shows “Pilly” carrying the ball. It was apparently his only appearance during the 1893 season. Though he wasn’t on the team’s roster for the year, he does appear in the 1893 team photo (too grainy to reproduce here). He was still in law school – he didn’t actually graduate until 1894 – so perhaps the team felt they needed their former star to defeat the highly regarded team from Madison and complete a second consecutive undefeated season.

The Marx Brothers in Horsefeathers (mobypicture.com)

The Badgers’ star halfback that day, Lyman, had faced the Gophers before as a student at Grinnell College in Iowa. He reportedly vowed he would stay in college until he beat Minnesota – which evokes images of Professor Wagstaff, Pinky and Baravelli in “Horsefeathers” a few decades later.

The Wisconsin game in 1893 was not the last time Pillsbury took the field in a Minnesota football game. He twice played against the Gophers — and lost — in 1895 representing the Minnesota Boat Club and the Ex-Collegiates.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Pilly as a player was offered by the famous University of Chicago coach Amos Alonzo Stagg. Writing in the University of Minnesota Alumni Weekly football special in 1914, Stagg recalled the first contact he ever had with a Minnesota team when he refereed a Gophers game in 1891. Pillsbury was one of four players he remembered from that game more than 20 years earlier, noting that Pilly was a “stalwart” at his position and “made a great reputation.”

The 1889 Gophers were a more relaxed outfit. Pillsbury, the captain, is front center.

Digression: Golden Gophers. When did the University of Minnesota officially add “Golden” to Gophers? How silly. “Back when I was a kid they were just Gophers and that was plenty good for us.” (Spits tobacco, misses spittoon.) Golden? That’s trying way too hard. “Gopher” too wimpy for you? Well, “Golden” makes it seem like we’re begging for a wedgie. Every time a national sports announcer says “Golden Gophers”, I can hear the eye-roll. There was a time when the “Gophers” were winners. Since the “Golden” was added? Losers. Posers. Hosers. It’s a curse. In the name of Jerry Kill and Richard Pitino, drop the Golden! Especially since the teams have gone to an ugly yellow — Grotesqueyellow Gophers! — instead of gold for a uniform color anyway. If “Buckeye” — the least fearsome nickname/mascot ever — doesn’t need enhancement, why should “Gopher”? Ohio St. still does okay.

Alfred Pillsbury’s third most visible personal accomplishment was serving as a Minneapolis park commissioner for 19 years between 1925 and 1946. He was president of the board for three years in the 1930s. My favorite quote from the annual reports that Pillsbury wrote was from the park board’s report for 1933.

While pleading the case for greater spending on park recreation programs, even in the depth of the Depression, Pillsbury wrote that providing recreation was, “just as vital as any function of government, not excluding that of the apprehension and conviction of criminals and the education of our youth.” I doubt that anyone has ever put the case more strongly for the value of recreation in our society.

That’s how the world seems to remember Alf, as Lori Sturdevant calls him in her family biography, The Pillsburys of Minnesota. But in these days of stadium subsidies and related land development d-d-d-deals — Gestribheit! – it is worth noting something else Pilly/Alf did.

The Stadium that Outlawed Ticket Scalping

Alfred Pillsbury is credited with playing a pivotal role in creating a new stadium for the Gopher football teams. Until 1896 — Pilly’s entire playing career — the Gophers usually played football on the baseball field behind the West Hotel in downtown Minneapolis. The biggest drawback was that the baseball field wasn’t quite long enough for a regulation football field, which lead Northwestern University to protest their loss on the shortened field in 1892. In 1896 the team moved to a new field, a sandy burr patch next to the Armory on the University campus. For three years spectators were accommodated by chairs placed around the field. In 1899, the athletic department borrowed $1,500 from the Board of Regents to construct a 3,000-seat grandstand. A board fence around the field was built by students, although the student newspaper reported with shock that some students climbed over the fence to attend games. The new field was named after University President Cyrus Northrop.

Alfred F. Pillsbury (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

Northrop Field, however, was never considered adequate. Dissatisfaction with the field led to a discussion in 1900 between the Dean at the time, Fred Jones, and former Minnesota Governor, President of the Board of Regents, and Pilly’s dad, John S. Pillsbury. The elder Pillsbury had also been one of the original twelve commissioners when the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners was created in 1883. John and Alfred Pillsbury were the first father-son duo to achieve park commissionerhood. The most recent was Leonard and Scott Neiman. The Neiman family could add a generation this year, given the candidacy of Scott Neiman’s son, Josh, for the park commissioner seat from the same southwest Minneapolis district that elected his father and grandfather.

Subsequent to his chat with Fred Jones, John Pillsbury privately purchased six lots adjacent to the Armory football field and convinced the city to vacate Arlington and Union Streets through the campus at that point. His intention apparently was to give the lots he had purchased to the university to expand the football stadium, but this plans were not completed before he died in 1901. His son and heir, Pilly, completed the plan, however, deeding the land to the University. The University then augmented the gift with the purchase of additional land and paid for the construction of a new grandstand that would seat 10,000 and provide standing room for nearly 10,000 more spectators. Pilly then stepped up again with the money to construct a brick wall around the entire athletic complex, which also included a running track and a baseball field.

The west end zone and standing room sections of Greater Northrop Field with the a portion of the Armory at right. My favorite part of the photo is the fans on the pole outside the stadium. Alfred Pillsbury’s brick wall wasn’t going to keep them from watching the game. (Minnesota Historical Society)

The new stadium, Greater Northrop Field, which opened in 1903, was considered exceptional for its time, but pressure for a bigger and better stadium would grow in only a decade.

Coaches Never Change. After praising the Gophers’ stadium as one of the “very best football playing fields in the country” a coach expounded, “Fine as this is, however, it does not meet the present football requirements of the University…Michigan, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Chicago, and Illinois have all far outstripped Minnesota in extent of grounds and equipment. A new field with concrete stands and ample acreage is a not unreasonable hope for the near future. Commodious, clean dressing quarters, baths and locker rooms in place of the present inadequate cramped, dirty, unsanitary, and unhygienic quarters should accompany the new field. While bearing but indirectly on football and yet affecting all athletic enterprises at the University, it might be well to mention that Minnesota has one of the poorest college gymnasiums in the country, in no wise in keeping with its needs or its athletic accomplishments.”
– U of M football coach Dr. Henry L. Williams writing in the Alumni Weekly, November 9, 1914. Norwood Teague could use that speech today with minor revisions.

The demand for tickets to see the Gophers play in those days is demonstrated by a law passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 1913, Chapter 521 of the General Laws of Minnesota.

“Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Minnesota:
Section 1. Prohibiting theater ticket scalping.–No person, firm, or corporation shall sell or offer or expose for sale any ticket of admission to any theater, opera, concert, athletic contest, or other public entertainment at a greater price than the same are being sold or offered for sale by the management of the same.”

Although the law is couched in general entertainment terms, the Minneapolis Tribune reported April 27, 1913 that the bill was passed expressly to prohibit the scalping of Gopher football tickets, which had been prevalent when the Wisconsin Badgers came to Northrop Field to play the Gophers the previous November. At that time — the Tribune headline was “Football Fever Grips City” — tickets that normally cost $1.50 were selling for as much as $10, putting them out of reach of most fans. (The first Minnesota legislation I can find that applies to excess charges on tickets of any kind is a 1893 law that prevented ticket brokers from raising prices for steamship and railroad tickets.)

The new law got its first great test when Coach Stagg’s University of Chicago eleven came to Minneapolis for a mid-November game in 1913. The 10,000 seats in the grandstand sold out the same morning tickets went on sale even though a limit of six tickets per person was implemented to curtail the anticipated aftermarket in tickets despite the new law. While the penalty for scalping tickets was a $10-$100 fine or 10-90 days in the county jail, the University also imposed punishment for students who sold their student tickets, which cost $5 for the season. The penalty was harsh: expulsion from school. Minneapolis police assigned three plain clothes detectives to patrol “hotel lobbies, cigar stores and saloons” to catch anyone trying to sell tickets over face value. (It wasn’t until 1949 that the legislature expanded the law to prohibit selling tickets below face value, too.)

The big game, played on a field that had been protected from frost all week by a covering of 18 tons of hay, lived up to advance billing resulting in a dramatic 13-7 win by Chicago. Despite the home team’s loss, the Tribune reported an “orgy of celebration” after the game that had never been equalled in Minneapolis history. The paper credited the Chicago win to Coach Stagg’s “shifty plays.” Chicago went on to beat Wisconsin the next week — the entire Wisconsin team was rumored to be at the Minnesota game scouting the Chicago squad — and won the Big Nine conference championship. It was the Big Nine, instead of the Big Ten, at the time because Michigan had temporarily withdrawn from the conference. Chicago was a member then, not replaced by Michigan State until 1949 after Chicago dropped out of major college athletics. What became of all that hay remains a mystery.

At conference meetings the week after the 1913 season ended, faculty representatives of Big Nine schools agreed to try out using numbers on players uniforms the next year. They also appointed Chicago’s coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg, to lead an effort to “devise a signal code by which officials in football games can inform announcers of the causes of penalties”.(Minneapolis Tribune November 29, 1913)

Digression: Squirrels, ferrets and flats. Lest you think that the 1913 legislature was being frivolous in passing laws against ticket scalping, it also passed laws against killing any kind of squirrel in public parks and repealed the law that had made it illegal to use ferrets to hunt rabbits in Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis counties. Apparently after passage of the law banning ferrets, the rabbit population had exploded and was destroying fruit trees in those counties. I don’t know if or when either law was ever amended or repealed. So if you plan to use your ferret to hunt rabbits in Minneapolis this summer, you might want to check first. The legislature also granted city councils the authority to determine where flat or apartment buildings could or could not be built, one of the first steps toward zoning restrictions and modern city planning.

After several years of intense public pressure, Northrop Field was replaced after only 21 years by Memorial Stadium, which opened in 1924. Alfred Pillsbury was reported to have donated $50,000 toward the construction of that stadium.

Medical school students demonstrating support for a new stadium about 1920. (Minnesota Historical Society)

Pharmacy students demonstrating for a new stadium around 1920. (Minnesota Historical Society)

The reference to the “auditorium” in the photo above was to what became “Northrop Auditorium.” The fundraising campaign for Memorial Stadium also included raising money to build Northrop Auditorium.

Although I don’t know if you can still use ferrets to hunt rabbits in Minneapolis, the laws prohibiting selling tickets to sporting events and other entertainment for more or less than face value was repealed in 2007.

While no evidence remains of the Pillsbury family’s contributions to athletic facilities at the University of Minnesota long ago — I don’t know if Pillsbury descendants contributed toward construction of The Bank or other newer facilities at the U — a statue of John S. Pillsbury remains prominent on campus for his role in creating the entire University. History also remembers both John and Alfred, father and son, for their contributions to Minneapolis through the park board; in that sense our city parks are also part of their legacy. And you can still go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art and find items donated from the collection of Alfred F. Pillsbury. I think I can write with confidence that he is the premier art collector in history who also played on his college football team for eight years.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

Happy 25th Birthday Minneapolis Sculpture Garden!

Sorry, I forgot to inform you of the original air date of tpt’s history of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It premiered last Sunday evening on tpt/MN. The half-hour documentary was made to celebrate the 25th birthday of an extraordinary public space.

The Sculpture Garden was a collaboration between the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, which owns and maintains the land, and the Walker Art Center, which designed the garden and selected the sculptures. It’s a Minnesota treasure.

The following photos show the transformation of part of the Sculpture Garden when the Armory Garden was created in 1913.

The southern half of the Sculpture Garden site before it was designated to become a garden in 1913, looking southwest, Armory in background, Walker Art Center site at left, Lyndale Avenue in lower left, Kenwood Parkway, now closed at right. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

The same site as above ready for planting for the 1913 convention of the Society of American Florists and Ornamental Horticulturists. (Minneapolis Collection, Hennepin Country Library)

The 1913 Armory Garden. The photo was taken from the Palace Hotel between The Parade and Loring Park. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

Whether you love the Sculpture Garden, or don’t really care, it is a remarkable use of parkland — one of many examples in the Minneapolis park system. As I said in the video, I think the transformation of one corner of a recreation park into an art park is a remarkable example of how the use of public land can — and should — change over time. It’s another tribute to the wisdom of those who envisioned the park system and the need to set aside land for public enjoyment. Because we own the land, we can adapt its use to meet our needs, however they may be defined and redefined. Brilliant!

The same land in the photos above, but seen from the south. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

The documentary will air again at various times throughout the summer. Check tpt schedules or watch it here.

Producer Mark Fischer did an excellent job with the video. He even let me be in it!

When’s the last time you visited? Maybe it’s time to take another look.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

The view from Tower Hill — at the base of the Witch’s Hat. Imagine the view from the observation deck above. (Talia Smith)

For years my “To Do in Minneapolis” list has included a climb that I have never made. And it’s not something I can do just any old day. We get one evening a year and that’s it. And once again I missed my chance. I wasn’t paying close enough attention that the Prospect Park/Pratt School Ice Cream Social was May 31. The night of that neighborhood party is the one time a year that the Witch’s Hat Tower on Tower Hill Park is open for climbing.

The climb would have been especially gratifying this year because it was the tower’s 100th birthday. The City of Minneapolis built the water tower on the hill, with the park board’s permission, in 1913. As explained before, the park was already named Tower Hill, at the request of neighborhood residents, when the Witch’s Hat water tower was built.

Since my earlier post on the Witch’s Hat, I found this stereopticon image of “Cheever’s Tower” dated 1858. (Minnesota Historical Society)

The Witch’s Hat tower was designed by Frederick Cappelen, as noted on a plaque that was put on the tower in 1999. I have a complaint about that plaque.

Cappelen is described on the plaque only as a “Norwegian architect.” Concise, but really misleading. Yes, he was Norwegian by birth, but he had immigrated to the United States at the age of 23 in 1880. He went to work for the City of Minneapolis in 1886 as a bridge engineer and in 1893 was elected Minneapolis’s City Engineer. He left that office in 1899, but was elected City Engineer again in 1913 and held that title until he died of complications from appendicitis in 1921. So, although Norway-born, he lived nearly his entire adult life in Minneapolis and during much of that time was a city employee.

The graceful arch of the bridge was the world’s longest concrete span at the time it was completed in 1923. (Mulad)

Cappelen’s greatest achievements in Minneapolis had nothing to do with the Witch’s Hat. He was the designer of the Franklin Avenue Bridge over the Mississippi, which was completed after his death. At that time, the bridge was the longest concrete-span bridge in the world, with a central span of 400 feet. The bridge’s official name is F. W. Cappelen Memorial Bridge.

Cappelen was also a key figure in designing the city’s water distribution system from the 1890s into the 1900s. He was so well-known as a bridge designer and a water works designer that his obituary was included in both the Proceedings of the Society of American Civil Engineers and the Journal of the American Water Works Association.

Cappelen was a Public Servant

Here’s my complaint about the plaque. I have no problem with identifying him as a “Norwegian architect” despite the fact that he was as American as everyone else in the city. My problem is with not identifying him as a public employee, as the City Engineer, a description that has far more to do with our memory of him than that he was Norwegian by birth.

The omission of his status as a public employee is part of my larger complaint that too many people praise everything in the private sector and disparage everything and everyone in the public sector. Too many people have such blind reverence for business methods and profit motives that they cannot distinguish between public and private good and the sometimes vastly different challenges involved in each. Some public problems cannot be solved by methods designed to maximize private profits.

I have also witnessed first-hand brilliance, stupidity and sloth in both government and corporate worlds. I have known very successful business people whom I would not trust to walk my dog around the block for fear that they’d screw it up somehow — or sell my dog before they made it back. I have known public employees with whom I would trust my life.

I have no tolerance for people who assume that someone who gets his or her paycheck from a government entity is incompetent and that everyone who works for a profit-making enterprise is more industrious and resourceful.

I have as much tolerance — none — for those who assume the only reason we have parks at all was a conspiracy of capitalists to enrich themselves. This myopic view, in my recent experience, seems particularly prevalent among people writing doctoral dissertations and some of those advising them.

To emerge from our present political quagmire, we have to be better than those extremes.

If there is a valuable lesson in Minneapolis park history it is that a great variety of people, with disparate philosophies and political views, have worked together on issues of the common good and achieved marvelous results. They included “capitalists” who looked beyond self-interest and profit, and they certainly included talented and dedicated public servants — like Frederick William Cappelen, City Engineer.

I’m sorry I missed again a chance to climb the tower he imagined 100 years ago. I’ll have to settle for a walk over his bridge.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

NOTE (6/6/2013): abockheim raises an excellent point in a comment on the post I linked to above about the identity of the tower that led to the naming of Tower Hill. Can anyone shed light?

An illustration of the view from Cheever’s Tower in 1857 by Edwin Whitefield. The lithographer was W. Endicott & Co. (Digital gallery of the New York Public Library.)

Here’s the link to the above illustration. I can’t picture this view from the campus or Tower Hill.

© David C. Smith 2013

Several people have pointed out my error in the location of Cheever’s Tower in yesterday’s post. No one has yet come up with an explanation of the tower that caused Tower Hill to be given that name. I bet someone will.

But Tom Trow has come up with what is a first, to my knowledge: a photo that shows the precise location of Cheever’s Tower. He believes it is the only photo of the tower other than the stereoscope view. He says he has never shown it outside of talks he has given. I present it with his permission. Great find, Tom.

Tom writes: “I created (the image) by taking a lantern slide from the Henn Co. Library’s Atheneum collection, and making a closeup with a Nikkon – and then digitized it.”

Cheever’s Tower and Hotel appear on the horizon in the center of this image. (Photo detail courtesy of Tom Trow.)

You can better appreciate Tom’s detective work when you see the original photo by Benjamin Franklin Upton, this from the Minnesota Historical Society’s online collection.

This is the image created by Benjamin Franklin Upton from the roof of the Winslow House in St. Anthony in 1857. (MH5.9 MP1b p14, Minnesota Historical Society)

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

Two photos from the 1950s, and two that are much older, show how people got to Lake Calhoun once upon a time. Both photos are from the Minnesota Historical Society’s online collection. I haven’t written about that collection in some time, but I continue to use it extensively for research on Minneapolis parks and other historical subjects. You should take a look if you haven’t before. It’s a treasure.

The first photo shows the intersection of Lake Street, Dean Parkway and West Calhoun Parkway, looking west.

Many Minneapolis parkways were once called “boulevards”, but that changed in 1968 when the Minneapolis park board renamed nearly all of them “parkways.” The park board wanted to create uniformity in treatment, but also believed that by calling them parkways, people would better understand that they were owned by the park board and were part of the park system. I still refer to them as boulevards at times, out of habit, as do many others. Curiously, Google maps hedges, labelling the road around the west side of Lake Calhoun “W Calhoun Pkwy” and “Calhoun Blvd”.

Travelling west on Lake St. at Dean Parkway. West Calhoun parkway begins at far left. (Norton and Peel, Minnesota Historical Society)

Note that the lot on the southwest corner of the intersection (upper left) is still undeveloped in 1953.

Aerial view, 1956. Excelsior Blvd. is in the foreground.  Minnesota Historical Society)

The earliest photos I’ve found of the American Hardware Mutual Insurance Company building on the site are dated 1956, such as this aerial photo from the Minneapolis Star Journal Tribune.

The park board never owned that piece of land, although it would have been a good addition to the lake park. The park board reported in 1916 that the purchase of 93 acres on that corner was pending, but the deal never was completed. The land behind the building to the southwest was once a small bay of the lake, which the park board filled with material dredged from the lake bottom.

Perhaps it’s simply an issue of the resolution of this photo, but I don’t see traffic lights even though it appears that east- and west-bound  traffic is stopped. The lights must have been installed about this time, because the city engineer had developed an initial plan for lights at this increasingly busy intersection in 1951.

The photo below was taken at the opposite, or southeastern, corner of Lake Calhoun at about the same time.

36th Street approaching the southeastern corner of Lake Calhoun, 1955. Lakewood Cemetery is on the left. (Norton and Peel, Minnesota Historical Society)

The photo is notable especially because the foundation of the street railway bridge over 36th Street still stands. This was the location of the rails that went to Lake Harriet and beyond to Excelsior and Lake Minnetonka. Of course, there were no traffic lights at the intersection of 36th and East Calhoun Parkway either.

East Calhoun Parkway in about 1890. Looking nroth from Lakewood Cemetery.(Minnesota Historical Society)

The trestle had been there since before the park board built the parkway. (See more on the Lyndale Railway Company at Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet.) In the photo at right you can see the bridge foundation (far right), in front of the carriage turning east onto 36th Street. The fountain in the boulevard for watering horses was an interesting touch. So was the scalloped hedge between the parkway and the lake. Does anyone know when the street railway bridge supports were torn down?

Most of the earliest parkways around lakes ran right along the water’s edge. That feature of early parkways is more prominent in the photo below of the end of Calhoun Parkway in about 1905. At that time the parkway ended where it turned south to connect to Lake Harriet. The land behind the photographer in this photo was private land all the way around the west shore of the lake back to Lake Street and the top photo.

The end of Calhoun Parkway at the south end of Lake Calhoun in 1905. The road turned to the right, the future William Berry Parkway, connecting to Lake Harriet. (Minnesota Historical Society)

The photo below shows the approach to the north end of Lake Calhoun from about the same time period as the photo above.

The north shore of Lake Calhoun from Lake Street, facing west in about 1902. (Minnesota Historical Society)

This photo shows Lake Street facing west at the northeast corner of Lake Calhoun. This was before the park board acquired the north shore of the lake. The only park land around the lake at this time was Calhoun Parkway beginning at the left of this photo and continuing to the previous photo.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Julieann Swanson, Assistant Curator of Digital Collections and Archives at the University of Minnesota’s College of Design  just sent a fabulous photo of the Lake Street, Dean Parkway, and West Calhoun Parkway intersection from about 1956 in response to my post earlier today. See Julieann’s comments on that post for more information on this photo and the Digital Content Library.

Looking west on Lake Street toward the intersection with Dean Parkway and West Calhoun Parkway. (Photo: University of Minnesota, Digital Content Library)

Julieann suggested that the photo is circa 1955, but I’ve advanced it a year to 1956, because I believe that is a red 1956 Chevy sitting at the east-bound stop light. And, yes, the traffic lights are quite visible in this photo! Would that car have been called, “Cherry”? I’m a little too young to remember ’50s slang.

Thanks, Julieann.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

One question is answered, but more are raised.

One of my first posts on this blog nearly three years ago examined the likelihood that Frederick Law Olmsted, the most prominent landscape architect in U.S. history, had designed any part of the Minneapolis park system. I wrote then that I didn’t think he had, not even the grounds of William D. Washburn’s Fair Oaks estate/mansion/castle, which later became Washburn Fair Oaks Park.

Frederick Law Olmsted (www.olmsted.org)

Many writers have attributed the landscape of Fair Oaks to Olmsted, but I have never found evidence to support that claim. As noted in my earlier post, an authoritative online resource guide to Olmsted’s projects, correspondence and plans listed an 1881 letter from the New York architectural firm McKim, Mead & White to Olmsted about the estate of W. D. Washburn. ORGO also listed a reply from Olmsted to that letter. I asked then if anyone knew the content of those letters.

To the rescue comes Dr. Gregory Kaliss, co-editor of Vol. 9 of Frederick Law Olmsted’s letters, which is scheduled for publication in 2015. After an exchange of emails with Greg about correspondence between Olmsted and H. W. S. Cleveland, I mentioned my curiosity about the contents of Olmsted’s communication with McKim et al. This week, Greg graciously sent scans of those letters, which are part of the Frederick Law Olmsted Papers at the Library of Congress. Thanks, Greg.

What I learned doesn’t exactly answer the question of Olmsted’s involvement with the landscape at Washburn Fair Oaks, but it does suggest a story about the design of Fair Oaks itself. There is a good mystery here for someone to solve.

Why did William Washburn part company with McKim, Mead & White and hire E. Townsend Mix?

The letter from McKim to Olmsted, dated June 2, 1881 — signed only “McKim, Mead & White”, so I’ll refer to it as the McKim letter — gives the impression that the job of designing Washburn’s mansion is a done deal.

Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead, Stanford White

“We have made plans for a large house for Hon. W. D. Washburn of Minneapolis,” the letter begins, ”and he has asked us to advise him as to the laying out of the grounds, and we have suggested he consult with you.” The letter offers Olmsted the option of submitting a proposal through McKim or corresponding directly with Washburn.

The letter continues, “Our house is a large one and the grounds comprise, we believe, 10 acres in the heart of the city. The house will be rather severe in character – 15th Century Renaissance  — and we should think a more or less formal treatment of the grounds immediately around it would be in character.” Enclosed with the letter were notes from Washburn, the nature of which was not divulged.

Olmsted responded two days later. He wrote that because he had just moved to his Brookline, Massachusetts home for the summer, he didn’t want to travel “so far away as Minneapolis,” but added, “I can do so later if required.”

Olmsted continued,

“As the house is large and in the midst of town and of the architectural character you state, it is probable that the design of the grounds would be ruled by considerations of convenience and of suitability and support of the motives of the house rather by those of local topography and distant prospects. In this case, if Mr. Washburn will provide, as he suggests, a good topographical map of the property and a map of the city from which its neighborhood relations can be understood, I could probably agree, in consultation with you, upon what should be arrived at and advise as to site, aspects, entrances and approaches. For such consultation and advice my charge would be $100.”

He added, “I cannot well estimate the charges which I should incur for further planning without knowing more of the circumstances,” including the “degree of detail” that would be required of him.

Olmsted concludes his letter with comments that reveal his close relationship with the principals of the firm. “I need not say,” he writes, “that it would give me great pleasure to cooperate with you.” Olmsted then “warmly” congratulates “Mr. White” (Stanford White) on the “extraordinary success” of the monument he designed to honor Admiral David Farragut, which had been unveiled to critical acclaim the week before in New York’s Madison Square. (That project was the first collaboration between White and the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who created the sculpture of Farragut for the monument.) Olmsted called White’s monument a “distinct advance of our public monumental standards.”

Olmsted had a personal interest in the success of the young architects. Charles McKim’s father, James Miller McKim, had been, along with Olmsted, one of the principals in founding the magazine, The Nation. Olmsted was also a friend of White’s father, Richard Grant White, who had written for The Nation. (One common thread is that they were all staunch abolitionists; they were joined by Saint-Gaudens father as well.) Mossette Broderick writes in The Triumvirate: McKim, Mead and White that Olmsted provided counsel to Richard White on a professional path for Stanford and introduced the sixteen-year-old to his friend, famous architect Henry Hobson Richardson, who gave Stanford his first job, setting him on a path to fame and fortune as an architect who never finished high school.

Finally, in his response to the McKim letter, Olmsted added that he was returning Mr. Washburn’s notes. The paper trail linking Olmsted to Washburn ends as abruptly as it began.

William Drew Washburn. Everyone had impressive whiskers!

There appears to be no evidence in Olmsted’s voluminous papers that he carried on any further correspondence on the project with McKim, Washburn — or with another architect, E. Townsend Mix. Mix matters, because he is the architect credited with the design of Fair Oaks in 1883. Mix was a highly regarded architect in Milwaukee who had done little or no work in Minneapolis before that year. How did Washburn meet Mix? And why did he have Mix design his grandiose residence instead of using plans already prepared by McKim, Mead and White who were on their way to becoming the most prestigious architects in the nation? Perhaps there is further evidence in the papers of Charles Follen McKim in the Library of Congress. Another item on the list of things to look up the next time I’m in Washington, D. C. I may have to move there!

Could Washburn have been dissatisfied with the “large…severe…15th Century Renaissance” house that McKim and company had designed for him? Instead he got from Mix a house that Larry Millet, in Once There Were Castles, describes as a “melange of Queen Ann, Tudor, Romanesque, and Gothic elements.”

Fair Oaks, looking southeast from E. 22nd Street and Stevens Avenue, about 1886. (Minnesota Historical Society)

In the past, some writers have presumed — mistakenly — from a letter Olmsted wrote to the Minneapolis park board in 1886 — after he had passed through town on his way to California — that he was somehow responsible for Minneapolis’s system of parks. So it’s possible that others could have made the leap from the exchange of letters with McKim to the conclusion that Olmsted does proceed to design the grounds of Fair Oaks. But does he? Dr. Gregory Kaliss : “Whether he actually does or not, I have no idea.”

It is hard to prove a negative – that he did not — but consider these factors.

From all I can learn about Olmsted’s visit to Minneapolis in 1886 on his way to California, he had not been to the city before, another argument against his active participation in the detailed layout of the Fair Oaks estate.

H. W. S. Cleveland never gives a hint in his letters to Olmsted (or others) that Olmsted had ever visited Minneapolis other than the brief stop in 1886. And Cleveland was upset with park board president Charles Loring on that occasion for taking Olmsted only to see Minneapolis’s lakes and not the Mississippi River gorge, which Cleveland considered to be the “jewel” of the city. If Olmsted had spent any time in Minneapolis to work at Fair Oaks he almost certainly would have seen both the lakes and the river gorge before 1886. And if he had designed Fair Oaks landscape from afar, you’d think he would have wanted to see his work, but the newspaper account of his visit (Minneapolis Tribune, August 24, 1886) gives no indication that he visited Fair Oaks.

I don’t know how often Olmsted designed landscapes — to any “degree of detail” — without visiting them first, but his reply to the McKim letter suggests that he was not offering to design a 10-acre landscape anyway. He seems to be offering his advice on the location and situation of the house on the property — “site, aspects, entrances, approaches” — rather than the design of the whole 10 acres. Moreover, I can’t imagine Olmsted doing much more than a cursory mansion site plan for a hundred bucks. That was considerably below the going rate at the time for planning a 10-acre estate.

For a landscape architect to design a pond, stream, bridge, extensive plantings, greenhouse, stables and the rest of 10 acres without visiting the site would have required extensive correspondence with someone and that correspondence doesn’t seem to exist. And there is ample evidence (reel after reel of microfilm at the Library of Congress) that Olmsted saved just about every scrap of paper that crossed his desk.

Olmsted also makes clear by his reference to arriving at a plan “in consultation” with McKim that he would prefer to “cooperate” with McKim rather than work directly with Washburn. His return of Washburn’s notes with his letter confirms that intent.

The pond, stream and bridge that later became well-known appear in an 1890-ish photo of Fair Oaks taken from 3rd Avenue. This is the section of the park that people want to attribute to Olmsted — even though the pond ceased to exist nearly 100 years ago.

Washburn Fair Oaks from 3rd Avenue, facing west, about 1890 (Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis Collection)

A much lusher version of a pond and fountain on the estate were featured on a postcard in about 1910.

“W. D. Washburn’s Park”, meaning the grounds at Fair Oaks, looking like a tropical garden — and with a different bridge – about 1910 (Minnesota Historical Society)

Now that I’ve had a chance to see the correspondence between McKim and Olmsted, I’m more convinced that Olmsted did not design the landscape of Fair Oaks.

I’d still appreciate hearing from anyone who can make a case for Olmsted on these 10 acres. I’d also like to know more about why Washburn switched architects after McKim, Mead and White had already drawn up a plan for the house. If you know anything, we’d love to hear it.

Thanks again to Dr. Gregory Kaliss for sending copies of the letters cited here. I look forward to seeing his project in print.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Postscript 6/14/2013: Thanks to an email from Andrew Caddock who was directed to a source by Kerck Kelsey, author of Prairie Lightning, a biography of William D. Washburn, we find this passage in The Northwestern Miller, (1884-1885 Holiday Number, “A Miller’s Palatial Home,” p. 82.) about Washburn’s estate: ”The grounds are splendid specimens of landscape gardening from plans by Cleveland who stands at the head of the list of American specialists in this line of work. Broad winding drives and walks lead up to the front and side entrances and end at a large and handsome stable in the rear at the southwest corner of the block.” The reference is almost certainly to H. W. S. Cleveland. This is the only reference I’ve seen to Cleveland designing a private estate in Minneapolis. Thanks, Andrew.

© 2013 David C. Smith

I have more circumstantial evidence that Frederick Law Olmsted didn’t design the grounds around Fair Oaks, the mansion of William D. Washburn in Minneapolis — and that H. W. S. Cleveland did.

I found it among my own files of stuff, but it took a long chain of events to help me find it. You can catch up to those events by reading my post and post script from yesterday.

Where we left the issue was that Kerck Kelsey in researching his book, Prairie Lightning, on the life of William Drew Washburn, had found a reference in a 1884 magazine to “Cleveland” having been the landscape architect at Fair Oaks. I had expressed surprise at that claim in an earlier post, because I had never seen it before.

But I can now offer evidence that supports the claim. For the first time in a few years, I returned to the detailed notes I took from the letters of Horace Cleveland to William Watts Folwell, which I read at the Minnesota Historical Society when I was researching, City of Parks, the history of the Minneapolis park system. In those notes I found a passage that connected Washburn and Cleveland. Why wasn’t that detail more “sticky” for me? Why didn’t I remember it before now?

Cleveland’s letter from Chicago to Minneapolis was dated March 18, 1883. and two very important events had occurred just prior to that date that occupied my attention. Only a couple weeks before Cleveland wrote, the Minnesota Legislature had passed legislation creating an independent Board of Park Commissioners for the city of Minneapolis. (The exact date of the legislation was February 27 — which is coincidentally the birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and me.) The often-dashed hopes of park advocates in Minneapolis were on the verge of coming true; only a public referendum in Minneapolis remained as an obstacle.

I thought that subject would be addressed by Cleveland in his letter, but it wasn’t. Minneapolis voters did approve the creation of the park board on April 3, 1883 and on April 24 the new board hired Cleveland to make his now-famous “suggestions” for the type of parks Minneapolis should develop. In other words, I was looking for big, important stuff. Something earthshaking: Cleveland writing with trembling hand about soon meeting his destiny.

But life ain’t like that — because another recent event had more immediate consequences: Cleveland had just learned that his friend, William Watts Folwell, the first and only president of the University of Minnesota, had resigned his post as the leader of a university he had practically created. Cleveland knew well the battles Folwell had fought, and had tired of, at the University, and he expressed his happiness upon hearing the news of Folwell’s action. In Minneapolis park history terms this was huge news, too, because Folwell’s return to the classroom and the library enabled him to devote considerable energy to parks as a future Minneapolis park commissioner and extremely influential president of the park board throughout the 1890s.

Park board creation, resignation from a prestigious job: no wonder I overlooked two sentences that had nothing to do with Minneapolis parks at the time.

“I am beginning to hear whispers,” Cleveland wrote, “of coming work in various quarters and am glad that Minneapolis is one of them, though I confess that I shrink from the thought of renewed journeys and protracted absences from home. Gen. Washburn writes me that he will be in Minneapolis about the middle of April and will want to see me there soon after.” (Emphasis added)

What could General William Drew Washburn (not yet a U. S. Senator) have wanted to see Cleveland about if not for designing the grounds of his new mansion, for which ground was probably about to be broken?

One tiny bit of historical evidence that Sam Waterston would scoff at. And I needed help from Dr. Gregory Kaliss, Kerck Kelsey, Andrew Caddock and Dave Stevens to find it. But for a few minutes this morning, I was the only person in the world who knew it. The thrill of discovery and the satisfaction of sharing it: Big reasons we keep reading old letters — and writing new ones.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

A few days ago Wendy Hajicek commented on an earlier post, mentioning her memories of Perkins Hill. Wendy asked if Perkins Hill was named for Frances Perkins the Secretary of Labor in the Cabinet of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I had written in a historical profile of Perkins Hill for the Minneapolis park board’s website that the park was named for the Perkins Hill Addition, a property development. Park board proceedings from that era do not indicate that the name was ever formally approved. It is one of those “so-called” properties.

I had never heard before the possibility that the park had been named for Frances Perkins, so I quickly looked  up the time frame of the acquisition to see if it would have been possible. The park was acquired in 1948 and Frances Perkins had served in Roosevelt’s cabinet from 1933 to 1945. The time period fit perfectly.

So then I went back to the plat maps from 1914, 1903 and 1892 that I consult so often from the Minnesota Digital Library and the Borchert Map Library at the U of M. I wanted to see how the property was named at those times. The name Perkins Hill Addition is on the 1903 plat map and the 1892 plat map notes that four adjoining parcels of land are owned by people with the Perkins surname. So it appears that the name is based in Minneapolis, not Washington, D.C.

Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, 1933-1945.

I haven’t looked up the Perkins family that owned, then subdivided, the north Minneapolis property in the late 19th century. Perhaps they were leading citizens of the community and I wouldn’t want to diminish their part in the early history of Minneapolis, but part of me was hoping that the park could have been named for Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve on a presidential cabinet and, therefore, the first to take a place in the line of succession for the presidency. A brief online exploration of her life suggests that she was influential in formulating Roosevelt’s labor policies, Depression-era work relief programs, and the creation of social security.

I’ll look for info on the Perkins family of north Minneapolis as well. If you know any of their story, let me know.

And as I mentioned in my reply to Wendy’s comment, I hope more people stop by Perkins Hill Park for a picnic or a visit. The view of the city is splendid. Does anyone have a photo to share?

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

Minneapolis parks are home to few statues, but two of the people or characters memorialized by statues in parks were related in real life. Well, sort of. Maybe “connected” is a better word. Can you guess which two? And, no, it’s not Hiawatha and Minnehaha.

Here’s the complete list of park statues as they come to mind: Abraham Lincoln on Victory Memorial Drive, Ole Bull in Loring Park, Thomas Lowry in Smith Triangle, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Longfellow Glen, and John Stevens, Hiawatha and Minnehaha, Gustav Wennerburg, and Taoyateduta at Minnehaha Park. We could add the Pioneers at the B. F. Nelson site, but they are anonymous figures.

The answer: Ole Bull’s brother-in-law, Joseph G. Thorp, the younger brother of Bull’s American wife, Sara Chapman Thorp, married Anne Allegra Longfellow, the youngest daughter of Henry in 1882. The marriage took place after Ole Bull’s death, so I’m not sure that such a bond actually makes Bull and Longfellow related, but Longfellow’s biographer Thomas Wentworth Higginson said the marriage “allied” the two families. Bull and Longfellow certainly would have known each other in the social/intellectual circles of Cambridge, Mass. Higginson suggests that Ole Bull was the model for the troubadour in Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn, which was published in 1863. Very few people recognize the book title, but many more are familiar with the most famous poem from the book, “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

The title of the volume of poetry mentioned above was recommended to Longfellow, according to Higginson, by another man who has a Minneapolis park named for him: Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator who was Longfellow’s best friend.

If you ever bothered to lay out the convoluted timeline of the above events you’d realize that it only works if Ole Bull was much older than Sara Thorp — which is true. He met the Wisconsin lumberman’s daughter after a performance in Madison, Wisconsin when he was 60 and she was 20. They married two years later.

Longfellow statue in a field near Longfellow Garden upstream from Minnehaha Falls, 2011. (Ursula Murray Husted, flickr.com)

This statue of Norwegian violinist and composer Ole Bull was placed in Loring Park in 1897, shown here in about 1900. (Minnesota Historical Society)

This story was brought to mind by the discovery earlier this week of a cabinet photograph of Ole Bull among the possessions of my mother-in-law, Virginia Carpentier, who died two weeks ago. We will miss Ginny.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith