Minneapolis Park History

Something I’ve been meaning to do for some time: publish a list of and links to the annual reports and proceedings (minutes) of the Minneapolis Park Board that can be found online. These were scanned and published by Hathitrust and Google Books.

Here’s the really great news: the Park Board, Hennepin County Library and Minnesota Digital Library are talking seriously about scanning and publishing online more of the annual reports, even beyond those that are in the public domain (pre-1923). If that is done, it could include many of the maps, plans and images that have been skipped or scanned poorly in already published efforts. It could also include the informative and insightful reports of the 1880s and 1890s not yet scanned and listed below. That would be a marvelous service to historians interested in local parks as well as those investigating national and international park developments.

The list below corrects some labeling errors on the various sites.  If you find any errors remaining in this list or know of any other sites that provide additional information, please send it to me and I will post it in comments or as a follow-up.

Observation: these reports come from many libraries, but my favorite stamp is in the 1919 Annual Report from the library of landscape architect Warren G. Manning. Manning’s work around the country included several projects for the Minneapolis park board. Look in the 1899 annual report for Manning’s recommendations on the Minneapolis park system.

A note on using the annual reports and proceedings: search the annual reports first to find the years of acquisitions or improvements in specific parks, then go to the proceedings from those years to find more detail. Using the multi-year reports list above can speed general searches, but it’s easier to find specific references in the single-year reports.

Perhaps within this year many more park board records and images will be available online. Research will be so much easier!

David C. Smith

© 2015 David C. Smith