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Sheepish: What’s Old is New in Park Maintenance
Minneapolis is now in its second year of testing goats to control invasive plants, especially buckthorn, in parks. The concept may be novel, but it’s not new. Long ago in park history, attention...
View ArticleCommemorating the “Great War” in Minneapolis Parks: Cavell, Pershing,...
As we remember the war that didn’t end all wars, which ended 100 years ago this weekend, I searched through my archives for park stories related to World War I. I found several that are worth sharing....
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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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Accept When Offered: A Brief History of Minnehaha Parkway
Given recent discussion of the history of Minnehaha Parkway, I thought it might be useful to consider a brief timeline of when and why the parkway was acquired by the Minneapolis Board of Park...
View ArticleLake Hiawatha Water Management
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) recently published background documents on water management issues at Lake Hiawatha and Hiawatha Golf Course that have guided priority-setting and...
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Theodore Wirth, Francis Gross and Me: A Friday Photo and a Re-assessment
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...
View ArticleUpdate for Historians and Grammarians
A brief Minneapolis park history update. Essential for Minneapolis historians. Trivial for grammarians. Grammarians first: King’s Highway, Bassett’s Creek, but not Beard’s Plaisance. (This apostrophic...
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Minnesota River Valley National Park?
What does the Minnesota River have to do with Minneapolis parks? The Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners, in 1934, tried to help Minnesota Gov. Floyd B. Olson convince the federal government to...
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100 Years Ago: Altered Electoral Map and Shorelines
What has changed in 100 years? A few times on this site, I have looked back 100 years at park history. I’ll expand my scope this year because of extraordinary political developments. Politics first,...
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Defining Wirth
The Minneapolis Park Board and Hennepin County Library report that we are probably only weeks away from the transfer of the park board’s historical archives to the downtown Minneapolis library. A...
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