By James Jarold

 

I was talking recently with a visitor from

Europe that I encountered taking photos along the parkway. Through his heavily accented English, he explained that he was traveling across the

U.S. documenting the best of American parks and public spaces. He told me he had heard of

St. Joseph’s beautiful parkway system before he ever crossed the ocean.

 

As a lifelong Joe, I’ve traveled every inch of the route, just as most of you readers have. Its human nature to take things for granted that are right there in front of your nose. I admit that the parkway to me is often just the quickest way from point A to B. How refreshing it was to hear someone from another country gush about how lucky we are to live with such a magnificent example of man harnessing nature for civic pleasure.

 

He explained that in most countries in

Europe where civilization is centuries older than it is here, rising populations and finite resources have combined to make public park lands a rare luxury. A group of well to-do families will buy up small plots of land between them, wall it off from outsiders and create their own small private parks. Coming from that environment, our parks and parkways seem immense.

 

The gentlemen asked me some questions that I embarrassingly had no answers to, and so I decided to do a little research. The following were some of the things I learned.

 

As

St. Joseph prospered and grew during the last half of the 1800’s, little thought was given to public spaces. The standard was set by the city’s founder who chose one layout over another, based on proposed street widths. Narrower streets mean more lots per acre, and therefore more profit for Mr. Robidoux. You can thank him for that the next time you maneuver your SUV through some of the tight turns in the older parts of town.

 

By the 1890’s a new movement was underway. Charles Mulford Robison, a newspaper writer from

Rochester, New York, influenced by the World Columbian Exposition and the Chicago Worlds Fair, coined the phrase “The City Beautiful.” Municipalities around the country attempted to adopt his principles for using parks as tools to combat the stress of urban living.

St. Joseph at the time, billed herself as “The Queen City of the West,” and in 1910 the local Ad Club wrote Mr. Robison asking him to come up with a plan to beautify the city.

 

At the time, there were two city owned parks of any notable size, Krug and Bartlett, each only about 20 acres and neither developed to any extent. Robison’s suggestions formed the basis of what we now know as the Parkway System.

 

Renowned Landscape Architect, George Kessler was brought in to implement the plan, and local engineer W.K. Seitz was hired to do the surveying.

One of the first obstacles was obtaining the land. Original plans called for the jewel on the north side to be

Prospect Hill Park, later re-named

Wyeth Hill Park. Problems acquiring the surrounding land forced city officials to change to the less desirable

Krug Park. After this, the city devised a condemnation plan to gain the properties it needed and numerous legal battles were fought along the way.

 

Residents of the Corby Grove area resisted the city’s efforts and took their fight all the way to the Supreme Court where they finally lost in 1925. The day after the ruling, the property owners burned 150-200 giant trees on the properties in protest. The move backfired, when the city successfully managed to pay even less for the ground because of its diminished value.

 

The Curd Property, stretching from

Ashland to
Asylum Road

, later changed to

Frederick Avenue

, was added. So was a creek bed north of Olive from 28th to 36th that became Parkway A.

 

The majority of the work was completed from 1921 to 1927. Total city owned park land grew during those years from 95 acres to over 1,200 as Krug and Bartlett were expanded, and

Hyde Park at the south end was added. The length of the parkway grew during the same years from 6.6 miles to 23.5.

 

The last of the bridges on the route were completed in 1927, and the official opening was in December of that year. Only twelve and a half miles were paved at the time. The rest were graveled.

 

The years of the Great Depression were hard on the entire country and

St. Joseph was no exception. A large number of local men kept food on the table working W.P.A. jobs. The majority of the stone walls in the parks and along the parkway were built during this period.

 

There were a lot of other individuals who were instrumental in the story of our parkway system, from early civic leaders right up to the current Director of Parks and Recreation. It’s easy to think of it as a fixed entity, staying basically the same through our lifetimes. The opposite is of course true. Just the regular mowing and maintenance on all this acreage is a daunting and expensive undertaking. The new walking trails are a great addition and are progressing nicely.

 

The reality is that our Parkway System is a constantly evolving project that continues to enhance the beauty and enjoyment of our city. Let’s be grateful our forefathers took the initiative when they did and that successive and current officials have taken the steps necessary to preserve and improve them. It truly is as it was described originally, a beautiful necklace encircling the city, with lovely parks as jewels dangling from it.

 

 

Posted by: admin on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
Filed under: Old Joe, General |