Archive for October, 2011|Monthly archive page
Nearby Parks: Landscape architect Arthur Nichols and park fireplaces
Filed under: Landscape Architects, Minneapolis parks | Tags: Arthur Nichols
Comments (2) This is not about Minneapolis parks, but let’s not be parochial. These coincidences are too good to pass up—and they are little more than a stones throw from Minneapolis.
I recently came across more information on Arthur Nichols, a Minneapolis landscape architect I had written about here and another notable park fireplace: the Beehive in St. Louis Park.
Read more about this “beehive” fireplace at slphistory.org or follow the link at right.
Nichols designed a series of roadside parks along Highway 100 from St. Louis Park to Robbinsdale when Highway 100 was constructed in the late 1930s. Read more about those mostly paved-over parks at the website of the St. Louis Park Historical Society here.
The beehive fireplace is of interest not only because it’s a cool design that could accommodate three picnicking families at a time, but because it is similar in several ways to the Minnehaha Park incinerator I wrote about a few days ago. Like the incinerator it was built in 1939. The slphistory web page claims it was built by unemployed masons, which I assume means it was part of a government relief work program, much like the WPA which was responsible for the Minnehaha incinerator. The beehive and incinerator were also both made of locally quarried limestone, the beehive limestone from the Minnesota River bluffs near the Mendota Bridge and the incinerator limestone from at or near Minnehaha Park which is only a couple miles north.
What I have yet to learn is whether Arthur Nichols designed the beehive fireplace himself or just specified it in his park plans. If anybody knows, please fill us in.
David C. Smith
Another Colorful Name Lost
Filed under: Minneapolis Park Names, Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Birch Pond, Glenwood Park, Theodore Wirth Park
Comments (3) The official record of the Minneapolis park board, the published “proceedings,” often don’t tell the whole story. Example: the proceedings of the park board meeting of June 6, 1910 record that the board voted that the “small lake in Glenwood Park between Western Avenue and Superior Avenue” be named “Birch Pond.” That’s been the name ever since.
What the official proceedings didn’t tell us I learned by accident while researching another issue. The June 7, 1910 Minneapolis Tribune noted the previous name of Birch Pond — the vastly more intriguing “Devil’s Glen.” I wonder how the little lake got that name. Probably a good story. But I imagine it was more offensive to some people than a lake named for John C. Calhoun.
The pond was renamed as the parkway beside it was being built by a crew of forty railroad workers imported from Hungary. The previous year, scheduled construction at North Commons and East River Parkway was postponed due to a labor shortage in Minneapolis. The park board took no chance with its new parkway through what was then Glenwood Park, now Theodore Wirth Park, and imported the workers to build it.
David C. Smith
Minnehaha Park: The Incinerator and the Fireplace
Filed under: Minneapolis parks, Minnehaha Falls, Mississippi River | Tags: Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Park
Comments (13) A few months ago Mary MacDonald and Doug Rosenquist asked about fireplaces near 54th and Hiawatha in Minnehaha Park. Mary asked about the stone fireplace a few hundred yards down the path into the dog park and Doug asked about the brick fireplace nearer the road and north of 54th Street.
View of the fireplace from the path in the dog park.
Unfortunately I haven’t found any information on the massive stone fireplace. Not even MaryLynn Pulscher of the park board knows why it’s there or who built it—and if MaryLynn doesn’t know it’s a decent bet that no one does. Still, I’ll keep asking around. I hope one of our readers knows somebody who remembers something and can pass it along to the rest of us.
I have better news about the two-story incinerator. It was built in 1939 by a WPA crew. This is how it was described in the park board’s 1939 annual report:
“Along this roadway a concrete, limestone-faced incinerator was constructed at the old stone quarry site. This incinerator, the first of its kind in our park system, will burn the waste accumulated from the various picnic grounds in this section of the city. A continuation of improvements similar to these is contemplated for next year.”
Two photos of the incinerator are included in the 1939 annual report, but those photos would be hard to reproduce due to the low quality printing of the annual report that year. The 1931-1939 annual reports were not typeset and production values were low.
A stairway goes down behind the incinerator to a lower level where the fire could be stoked and ashes removed..
Despite a reputation for producing elegant and well-illustrated annual reports dating back to the earliest days of the park board (see praise for the park board’s annual reports from noted landscape architect Warren Manning here), the park board’s finances during the Great Depression would not allow anything above the barest minimum of expenditures on annual reports. I am still grateful, however, that photos were included in the reports during those lean depression years.
Until you can get to a library to find a copy of the report and see the original photos, I will provide this quick shot I took last week.
In materials and construction — concrete faced with limestone — the incinerator is similar to the other WPA construction projects in Minnehaha Park in 1939 and 1940, including bridges across Minnehaha Creek in the lower glen and retaining walls built along the creek. (You still have two days to vote for Minnehaha Park and Mill Ruins Park in the Partners in Preservation contest on facebook.)
The Old Stone Quarry Site
The most interesting part of the incinerator description, for me, is its location at the “old stone quarry site.” I remember seeing the photo below in the 1907 annual report and assumed that the quarry was in operation for several years. It appears that it was not. Continue reading
Triangle Followup: Prospect Park, Laurel and Sibley Triangles
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General, Prospect Park, Sibley Field | Tags: Laurel Triangle, Prospect Park, Sibley Field, Sibley Triangle
Comments (3) Summer gardens are gone and I never got a good picture of another beautiful park triangle: Sibley Triangle located in northeast Minneapolis where Washington Street NE and Fifth Street NE meet. (For earlier posts on park triangles see this one on small triangles and this one on triangles in Prospect Park.) Every time I was in the neighborhood I was without camera, so if any readers have photos I’d like to post them. The garden is planted and maintained by volunteer Robin Russell, who has done a fantastic job. Sibley Triangle is another of Minneapolis’s six triangles that are listed as 0.01 acre. The park board acquired the little triangle from the city in 1920.
Like Sibley Field in south Minneapolis, it was named for Henry Hastings Sibley, but the triangle was named first. Apparently having a little street triangle named for Sibley did not sufficiently honor Minnesota’s first governor, so the larger neighborhood park was named for him too — three years later. (The larger park had previously been referred to as Cedar Avenue Heights Park. See more here.)
I was also informed by Michelle Kellogg of the park board that the volunteer who deserves the credit for maintaining the tranquil gem of Laurel Triangle in Bryn Mawr is Patty Wycoff. Thanks Patty!
Laurel Triangle 2011
Finally, I spent an enjoyable evening in July with the Prospect Park Garden Club at the home of Mary Alice Kopf talking about triangles and other parks in the neighborhood. Thanks to Julie Wallace who dug up the info from neighborhood association documents that Bedford Triangle and Clarence Triangle were altered in 1979. Bedford Triangle was obliterated and the street on one side of Clarence Triangle was removed so it now appears to be part of the yard on the northwest corner of the Bedford and Clarence intersection. The only thing that suggests it is not private property is a boulder on the corner — as in the other Prospect Park triangle parks. I learned that night that the boulders were unearthed during the construction of I-94 through the neighborhood.
David C. Smith
Minneapolis Park History 