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Those Darn Cars!
“It is the sense of this Board that the practice of tooting Automobile horns, by way of applause, at the concerts given in the parks should be discontinued.” Motion proposed by park commissioner...
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Engineers in Minneapolis Park Plans
I was curious about the people who created the park plans I featured in the Catalog of Minneapolis Park Plans, 1906-1935, which was presented in three installments recently (Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3)....
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Delineators in Minneapolis Park Plans
When the park board employed its first full-time engineers it’s likely that those engineers also did the drafting or “delineating” of the plans for new parks. The assumption is supported by the...
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Horace Bushnell’s Ghost
Horace Bushnell, one of America’s most influential theologians in the 19th Century, was among the first people to promote parks in Minneapolis. His ghost may still haunt us. I don’t know if this is...
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Is that a lake?
This photo illustrates the difficult history of Diamond Lake. It doesn’t look like a lake at all — and it might not have been. The 1938 annual report of the park board refers to “the dry lake bed at...
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The Five Bears
This bear cage was built in Minnehaha Park in 1899 to house four black bears and one “cinnamon” bear. The 1899 report of the Minneapolis park board describes this bear “pit” built for the bears...
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Francis A. Gross Autobiography I: North Minneapolis and the Origin of North...
My wish was granted. Last April, in an article about the original Longfellow Field and its sale to a munitions maker during WWI, I wrote, “Of all the park commissioners in Minneapolis history, Frank...
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Ski Jump Update
So many people have commented on my article posted nearly two years ago about the history of ski jumping in Minneapolis that I thought I should provide an update. I was prompted by an exchange of...
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Cleveland’s Van Cleve: A Playground or a Pond
A tantalizing paragraph. “Professor Cleveland submitted a plan of the improvement of the 2nd Ward Park, whereupon Commissioner Folwell moved that that part of the park designated as a play ground be...
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Park Progress: 100 Years of Engines, Wheels, Automobiles and Metropolitan Parks
Writing one hundred years ago this week, then Minneapolis park board president Edmund Phelps, made several observations in the park board’s annual report for 1912 that attracted my attention. “I notice...
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Fear in the Hearts of Children: More from the Autobiography of Francis A. Gross
Last weekend I read Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota and Our Way or the Highway: Inside the Minnehaha Free State. That followed a recent rereading of Folwell’s History of Minnesota, Volume I,...
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Minnehaha Falls Photos
Karen Cooper tells me she has photos of more 19th- and early 20th-Century bridges over Minnehaha Creek at Minnehaha Falls than the ones I’ve already posted. You can see those photos and more next...
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H. W. S. Cleveland and Lake Harriet
While looking for other things I keep encountering bits of information that deepen my understanding of and appreciation for Horace W. S. Cleveland’s profound contribution to Minneapolis parks. More...
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The Beginnings of a Garden
One hundred years ago next week, Theodore Wirth made a request of the Minneapolis park board that made possible one of Minneapolis’s most cherry-ished landmarks — and parks. The park superintendent who...
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An Early 8-hour Day?
Teamsters who worked for the Minneapolis Park Board began working 8-hour days in 1913. With only a quick look into the history of the eight-hour workday, that strikes me as a fairly early concession by...
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Glenwood Spring: A Premier Park — and Water Supply?
H. W. S. Cleveland, the landscape architect who created the blueprint for Minneapolis’s park system in 1883, made his first visit to Glenwood Spring near Bassett’s Creek in north Minneapolis in the...
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Friday Photo: Lake Calhoun North Shore
One of my favorite photos of Lake Calhoun. The photo is undated, but I would estimate that it was taken in the late 1910s. The view indicates it was taken from the Minikahda Club on the west side of...
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The Worst Idea Ever #8: Power Boat Canal from Minnetonka to Harriet
Ok, it wasn’t really a Minneapolis park project, but it still deserves a laugh: Minnehaha Creek converted into a 30-foot-wide power boat canal from Lake Minnetonka to Lake Harriet! Lake Harriet could...
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Friday Photo: Before It Became a Park?
Not many people would recognize this Minneapolis park property, which lies outside city limits and was acquired in 1928, twelve years after this photo was taken. There is some uncertainty about how...
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Friday Photo: How A Stone Arch Was Made
The Stone Arch Bridge over the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis is becoming one of the iconic images of the city. Have you ever wondered how those arches were made? I have. So I found this...
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