Minneapolis Park Memory: A Friend of Loring Park
Filed under: Minneapolis Park Memory | Tags: Loring Park, McRae Park, Minneapolis parks, Powderhorn Park, Theodore Wirth Park
Comments (1) After arriving in Minneapolis in September 1941, the first city park I became familiar with was Loring. I had come to enter nurse’s training at Eitel Hospital, and the park was right across the street. The park provided a beautiful view from patients’ rooms. It was also an oasis for student nurses, a place to relax in the summer or go skating on the lagoon in winter. Every nurse who has graduated from Eitel would have special memories of Loring Park.
The park looked different back in the forties. Old, tall trees grew along the edge of the lagoon. Now they are gone and tall grasses grow at the edge of the water. Bright red cannas blossomed in flower beds on the west side of the park. Now, “Friends of Loring” have created a large round garden on the northwest side called “Garden of the Seasons.” A variety of trees and flowers are in the center with benches and a brick path around it. Bricks can be donated in honor or memory of someone. A brick on the east side reads: “Eitel Hospital Nursing School — Class of 1944,” given in tribute to classmates, many of whom had served in the Army Nurse Corps in World War II.
In later years, my family and I enjoyed picnics at Minnehaha Park and viewing the beautiful Falls. Performances by the Aqua Follies at Theodore Wirth Park, and pop concerts at Lake Harriet on Sunday afternoons were great fun. My son as a teenager spent many winter evenings skating and playing hockey at McRae Park. On July 4th, we watched fireworks at Powderhorn Park. The park system provided something special for every season. My husband often said, “Minneapolis is the prettiest city I’ve ever seen.”
Ardelle Lande
Looking west across Loring Park from Eitel Hospital, 1375 Willow Street, in 1939. (Norton and Peel, Minnesota Historical Society, NP129145)
Editor’s note: For more photos of Eitel Hospital visit the Photo Collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.
If you have a Minneapolis Park Memory, send it to minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com. If you have a digital photo to accompany your memory, we’d love to see it.
Minneapolis Park Memory: Phelps Field Fun
Filed under: Minneapolis Park Memory | Tags: Minneapolis parks, Phelps Field
Leave a Comment Living across the street from Phelps Field for fifty years, at 39th and Park Avenue, was sometimes both a joy and a curse. Cousins coming from out of town would always be eager to get to the park. If a baseball or basketball game was in progress, they would be eager to join in. The younger children loved the swings, slides, etc. But my paramount memory of Phelps Field was a basketball bouncing at one o’clock in the morning. I often wondered who the young man was. Did he not have a home to go to or would he rather be in the park than go home? I’ll never know. But to my way of thinking, he probably ended up playing in the NBA!
Jennie Aamodt
Phelps Field began life in 1917 as Chicago Avenue Field. The park was developed in 1924 (shown here). It was renamed Phelps Field in 1939. (Minnesota Historical Society, MH5.9 MP4.5 p8)
Minneapolis Park Memory: Spectacular Powderhorn
Filed under: Minneapolis Park Memory | Tags: Minneapolis parks, Powderhorn Park
Leave a Comment Powderhorn Park in south Minneapolis is a unique park with a large island in the middle of the lake. I lived about eight blocks from there, just the right distance for a walk. In the winter, my friend, Muriel, and I would tie the laces of our skates, carry them around our necks, and head for Powderhorn. It was a great place to skate around and around the island; we spent many days skating.
On Monday nights in the summer, we walked to the park to listen to the band concert (more important to us was to walk around and meet the boys). It was on one of those nights that I met my husband, and the first date I had with him was made there. That date never materialized, because I stepped on a bee while mowing the lawn and had to stay home. I’m not quite sure he really believed me, but we did get married a year or so later. Since he was in the service then and only able to get home a few times, we got married after only eleven dates.
July 4th was a big night at Powderhorn. All the families brought blankets and sat on the hills to watch the big fireworks display. The fireworks were lit on the island. One year there was a mishap; every one of the rockets went up at once. It made for a short, but spectacular event.
Fern Eidsvoog
Inspiration, Ideas and Ideals (Courtesy of William Watts Folwell)
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Folwell Park, Minneapolis parks, William Watts Folwell
Comments (1) Park history provides more than pretty pictures. Thanks to people such as William Folwell, it also gives us inspiring words. Such inspiration has perhaps never been needed more than now when political discourse is dominated by petty self-interest and shallow swagger.
“We owe it to our children and to all future dwellers in Minneapolis to plan on a great and generous scale. If we fail to accomplish, let them know it was not for lack of ideas or ideals.”
— William W. Folwell, President, Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners, Eighteenth Annual Report, 1900
William W. Folwell attended the dedication of facilities at Folwell Park, July 4, 1925. He was 92. (Minnesota Historical Society, por 12574 r18)
David C. Smith
Powderhorn Park and Augsburg Stories Converge
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General, Powderhorn Park | Tags: Murphy Square, Powderhorn Park, Speed Skating
Leave a Comment A reader of recent posts on Murphy Square/Augsburg College and speed skating at Powderhorn Park put the two together and suggested a link to an article featuring U. S. Olympic speed skater Johnny Werket, who attended Augsburg. From the article we learn that a third Minneapolis park also played a role in the story: Longfellow Field was Werket’s home park.
Thanks for the tip.
David C. Smith
Minneapolis Park Memory: A Memorable Silence
Filed under: Minneapolis Park Memory, Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Bossen Field, Edward Foote Waite, Minneapolis parks, Minnehikers, Theodore Wirth, Waite Park
Comments (1) I was the editor of the Minneapolis Municipal Hiking Club’s monthly newsletter for many years, up through the last month of the club’s existence in October 2010.
One hike I particularly remember took place on Wednesday, September 12, 2001. The Club had an evening hike scheduled for the neighborhood around Bossen Field in south central Minneapolis. Many planes fly over this area approaching the airport, but this was the day after 9/11 and all U.S. civilian planes were grounded by federal decree. It was quite a sensation walking in this area, expecting to hear planes fly over, but hearing none.
George Bridgman
Minnehikers was a popular club. Annual banquet, 1938. (Norton and Peel, Minnesota Historical Society, GV1.22 p87)
Editor’s note: The Minnehikers, as the club was known, was originally organized by the park board’s recreation staff in 1920. According to Theodore Wirth (Minneapolis Park System 1883-1944), the first hike took place on January 10, 1920. Minneapolis Mayor J. E. Meyers, Judge Edward Foote Waite and Wirth led 83 hikers 3 1/2 miles from Minnehaha Falls to Riverside Park.
Twenty-nine years later, the park board named a park for the juvenile court judge who participated that day: Waite Park in northeast Minneapolis.
Waite Park and Waite Park School, the first joint school/park development in Minneapolis in 1949, were named for Judge Edward F. Waite, pictured here with students and teachers at the school in about 1955, when he was 95. (Newburg Studio, Minnesota Historical Society, por 5807 p8)
The mayor’s name is on a park too, the J.E. Meyers Memorial Park in Mound on Lake Minnetonka. Internet sites list it as both a boy’s camp and a cemetery. A mystery to be solved. Of course, we know that Wirth has a park named for him, too.
I would tell more about the Minnehikers, but I hope former members of the group will do that themselves with first person accounts. The club sponsored its last hike in October. Changing times.
David C. Smith
First shipment of merchandise by air lands in a Minneapolis park
Filed under: Minneapolis Airport, Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Minneapolis airport, Minneapolis parks, The Parade
Leave a Comment Another first for a Minneapolis park: The nation’s first commercial air shipment landed at The Parade near downtown Minneapolis on May 8, 1920.
This entry in the proceedings, or minutes, of the Minneapolis park board on May 5, 1920, had puzzled me from the time I first saw it a couple of years ago.
Petitions and Communications
From Dayton Company —
Requesting permission to have the two airplanes bringing freight from New York to overcome the embargo to land on The Parade Friday morning.
Commissioner Gross —
Moved that the request be granted under the supervision of the Superintendent of Parks.
Adopted
Dayton’s Express air merchandise shipments arrived from New York at The Parade, May 8, 1920 (Charles J. Hibbard, Minnesota Historical Society, HE1.21 p53)
Only recently did I look up newspapers from the time to see if the event was mentioned. When I read the coverage in the Minneapolis Tribune, I knew I had seen a photo of the event somewhere and went straight to the Minnesota Historical Society’s Photo Collection, one of the most interesting places on the Internet. Sure enough, there were two photos of the event recorded by the superb photographer Charles Hibbard.
Dayton’s air merchandise shipment was unloaded after the plane was towed, minus wings, from The Parade to Dayton’s store on Nicollet Ave., May 8, 1920. The man on the plane is likely Ray S. Miller, the pilot who flew from New York via Buffalo. (Charles J. Hibbard, Minnesota Historical Society, HE1.21 p52)
This is the story of a retail innovation by Dayton’s (now Target) and another small part in history played by Minneapolis parks.
In April 1920, a wildcat strike by railroad switchmen in Chicago eventually spread to railroads and rail yards throughout the country causing a near shutdown of national transportation. Even after the strike had ended goods had piled up around the country threatening food and fuel shortages in a kind of gridlock from New England to the Pacific Northwest. While the Interstate Commerce Commission, White House and Congress grappled with the problem and eventually reinstituted some World War I-era government controls on railroads, the department store of George Draper Dayton developed an innovative plan: it would ship goods from New York City to Minneapolis by airplane.
The Minneapolis Tribune announced Dayton’s intentions April 30, 1920 along with the news that two airplanes had already left the Curtiss airplane plant in Buffalo, New York bound for Roosevelt Field on Long Island. The planes would commence their journey west as soon as they were loaded. The Tribune also noted the interest in the flight by Minneapolis Postmaster E. A. Purdy, who asked the company to give him all particulars on the flight. United States airmail service from Chicago to Minneapolis was scheduled to begin two months later on July 1. And none too soon. The Minneapolis post office had just set a record on April 8: the first time it had handled 100,000 packages in one day.
Dear Target, Thank you. Yours Truly, FedEx and UPS
In the next day’s edition, the Tribune reported that the plan to fly merchandise to Minneapolis had attracted considerable attention. The New York American had carried a story of the flight by which a half-ton of goods was to be transported aboard two Curtiss Oriole airplanes. “The plan is described as a pioneer step in shipments of goods by plane,” the Tribune reported, “and is declared to bear the possibilities of an extensive development of the use of aircraft for freight-carrying purposes.”
On May 2 the Tribune ran photos of the two dapper pilots, Ray Miller and Charles Keyes, who had traveled to New York to pilot the planes back to Minneapolis. In this edition the Tribune claimed that the effort by Dayton’s had attracted the attention of both New York and Chicago retailers.
Perhaps the weather was not good or it took a long time to load 1,000 pounds of merchandise, but the planes didn’t depart New York until May 6. The May 7 Tribune reported that the pilots had flown through a blinding snowstorm over the Mohawk Valley before arriving in Buffalo the night before and were expected to arrive in Minneapolis the morning of May 8.
“Permission for the airplanes to land on The Parade grounds has been granted by the Board of Park Commissioners,” the Tribune reported. “The wings will be removed and the airplanes will be towed through the streets to Dayton’s store.”
And they were — as Charles Hibbard showed us.
While Target’s history website portrays the air shipment as a response to empty shelves in Dayton’s store, and it may have been, it was also a carefully constructed publicity campaign — from the daily press coverage, including photos of the pilots, to painting “Dayton’s Express” on the fusilages. The planes could have landed at the Speedway Airport, later Wold-Chamberlain Field, and the merchandise trucked to the store. Landing the planes in a park in the center of the city and then hauling them wingless into downtown for unloading made a good story that much better. Very clever.
Of course, in later years the park board became heavily involved in aviation. In 1927 the park board acquired the land of the fledgling Wold-Chamberlain Field in Bloomington and built it into a world-class airport. The park board turned the airport over to the Metropolitan Airports Commission in 1944, but retained title to about 600 acres of land at the center of the airport.
This was not George Dayton’s first encounter with the park board. When the Street Railway Company’s pavilion on park land beside Lake Harriet burned down in the spring of 1903, George Dayton was on a committee for the Retailers Association that worked with the park board and Street Railway to build a new pavilion. The Street Railway Company decided not to build a new pavilion itself but to contribute the $15,000 it collected in insurance on the burned building to the park board. The remaining $15,000 the park board needed to build a new pavilion? It was loaned to the park board on attractive terms by Dayton and the other retailers.
(See earlier post on the original plans for The Parade by Warren Manning.)
David C. Smith
© David C. Smith
A premier speed skating track in a Minneapolis park
Filed under: Powderhorn Park, Winter Sports | Tags: Gene Sandvig, John Werket, Ken Bartholomew, Minneapolis parks, Powderhorn Park, Speed Skating
Comments (15) A scrapbook of newspaper clippings about speed skating from 1953 to 1956 was recently given to Dave Garmany the recreation coordinator at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis. The scrapbook features articles on the speed skating scene in Minneapolis, the U.S. and the world in those years and includes several articles from Norwegian newspapers.
In addition to the newspaper clips were several programs from international speed skating events at the Powderhorn Park speed skating track, such as this one in 1953.
A cropped version of the cover photo, showing a massive crowd at a 1930s event at Powderhorn Park—likely the national championships in 1934, which were reportedly attended by 50,000 in two days—is in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.
Huge crowds attended the National Speed Skating Championships held at Powderhorn Park in the 1930s and 1940s. (Minnesota Historical Society)
Most of the clips in the scrapbook were about the rivalry between Minneapolis skaters Ken Bartholomew and Gene Sandvig. Bartholomew won 14 National Outdoor Championships from 1939-1960. Sandvig was often runner-up in the 1950s after he had gotten out of the Army and enrolled at Gustavus Adolphus College. Bartholomew was a silver medalist for the U.S. in the Winter Olympics at St. Moritz in 1948. Sandvig skated for the U. S. in the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo and the 1956 Games at Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Planert skates were advertised in the 1953 speed skating program pictured above. The skates were not cheap. The list price for a pair of Planert’s “Olympic Model” skates in a 1955 ad was $60.
The skater featured in Planert’s ad, Leo Friesinger, was the bronze medalist for the U.S. in the 500 meters at the 1936 Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Friesinger was from Chicago, which was also home to Planert.
Among other bits of info that caught my eye in news clips from Minneapolis Star and Minneapolis Tribune.
- Minneapolis high school athletic director Giffy O’Dell hopes to bring back speed skating as a regular sport in the Minneapolis high school sports program. January, 1954. (I never knew it ever had been part of that program.)
- Top Minneapolis skaters Ken Bartholomew and Gene Sandvig will not be challenged locally by two other elite Minneapolis skaters. Pat McNamara will return to Norway or will train in Japan. Johnny Werket is considering spending the winter in Japan. January, 1954.
- Werket and McNamara have created a new practice track early in the season on Augusta Lake in Mendota. They do not train at Powderhorn Lake. They prefer the European style of speed skating used in the Olympics. The European track is 400 meters compared to the standard American track (including the Powderhorn track) of 293 yards, four laps to a mile instead of six. Also in European skating all competitors race against the clock instead of against other skaters in a pack. (American-style speed skating at the time was in between the long-track and short-track skating in today’s Olympics. The Winter Olympics tried the North American pack-style of speed skating at the 1932 games in Lake Placid, New York. Canada and the U.S. won 10 of 12 medals skating that way. The 1936 games in Germany reverted to European-style racing against the clock — and Norway and Finland won 10 of the 12 medals. Pack speed skating returned to the Olympics as a separate demonstration sport, short track skating, in 1988 at Calgary and became a regular Olympic event in 1992 at Albertville.)
- Ken Bartholomew was a 14-time U.S. champion, but he skated for the U.S. Olympic team only once, winning a silver medal in 1948 at St. Moritz. He did not make the Olympic team again despite dominating the National Outdoor Championships for years. Werket was on the U. S. Olympic team in 1948, 1952 and 1956. McNamara skated in the Olympics for the U.S. in 1952 and 1956. Their greater success in making Olympic teams may have been partially due to training in the Olympic style of racing—although Gene Sandvig also made the Olympic team in 1952 and 1956. All three were also much younger than Bartholomew. A commentary in the Minneapolis Tribune after the Winter Games in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 1956 had this to say about the different styles: “The U.S. should adopt the Olympic system of competition—that is, a competition against time. True, it’s pretty dull for young Americans, as well as the few spectators who turn out. They (presumably young Americans and spectators) love the free-for-all scramble with all of its pushing, tugging, elbowing and the like such as popped up in the Nationals at Como over the weekend.” (The reference was to the races at Lake Como in St. Paul won by Bartholomew, in which Bartholomew and another skater got into a fight after the other accused Bartholomew of knocking him down. Bartholomew was obviously a racer, a strategist, not a time-trial expert that the Olympic style required. In other words, he was more Apolo Anton Ohno than Shani Davis, Eric Heiden or Dan Jansen.)
- One reason the Tribune advocated changing American racing to the Olympic style: the Russians had started to dominate international speed skating. It had begun with a surprise victory by the Russians at the world championships in Sapporo, Japan in 1954. The U.S. had failed to send a team. The U.S. State Department had declined to pay the travel costs of John Werket, Pat McNamara and a third skater from Chicago, Ken Henry, who was an Olympic gold medalist in 1952. The State Department determined that the request for funds was “not meritorious.” (Tribune, January 31, 1954) The Russian victory elicited this comment on the sports page: “The time is at hand when the athletic leaders of the free world had better take Russia’s bid for international supremacy seriously. The Commies proved in the last Olympic Games they have made greater strides in track and field than any other nation in the world. Over the week-end Russia did the unexpected by winning the world’s speed skating championships rather decisively, beating the best Norway and some other Scandinavian countries have to offer.” Russian dominance had grown at the 1956 Winter Games.
- The 1955 world championships were held in Moscow and Johnny Werket was one of three skaters to represent the U.S. after friends raised $700 to pay his expenses. Those three skaters were the first American athletes to compete in Russia after World War II, according to a February, 1955 Tribune article. Werket had high praise for the Russians. “Russians were tops,” said Werket, “as athletes, as hosts and as fans. It would be hard to find a fairer audience anywhere in the world.”
- Nearly all Minneapolis speed skating teams in the 1950s were sponsored by American Legion posts. Wenell, Laidlaw, Bearcat and Falldin posts all sponsored teams.
The 1955-1956 program for the Minnesota Speed Skating Association
Finally this item from the annual program of the Minnesota Speed Skating Association, 1955-1956:
Missing Skater News
- Tom Miller and Colleen Burke (Falldin American Legion Post team) married last June, Tom in U. S. Army, stationed in California
- Gene Sandvig (Bearcat) on Olympic Team
- Tom Hadley (Wenell) concentrating on studies, U of M on Evans Scholarship (Based on scholarship and golf proficiency)
- Janet Koch (Laidlaw) is now Mrs. Vasatka
- David Kahn (Wenell) out with knee injury suffered in football at Roosevelt Hi
- Dennis Boike (Laidlaw) at Nazareth Hall Prep Seminary studying for priesthood
- Tom Romfo (Wenell) recuperating from a bout with polio
For some reason, perhaps the mention of polio, the list seemed so 1950s. Poignant, too.
David C. Smith
© David C. Smith
Powderhorn Park Football
Filed under: Powderhorn Park | Tags: Football, Minneapolis parks, Powderhorn Park, The Parade
Comments (2) A recent visit to Powderhorn Park and a chat with recreation coordinator Dave Garmany turned up an excellent photo of the Powderhorn football team from 1925. Unusual for its time, it was labeled with the names and positions of the players.
1925 Powderhorn Football Team at The Parade (Basilica in background). First Row L-R: Helmar Larson OB, Claude Casey FB, Manley Peterson LT, Kenneth Johnson RH, George Carlson RG. Second Row, L-R: Lee Blood RT, Joe Listered LE, John Larson RE, John Martin LE, Ed Mandeck LE. Third Row L-R: Frank Shogren LG, Hersel Johnson RE, Howard Shenessy Capt., Leonard Herlen RG, Walt Nordstrom LH, Al Dunning RH. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)
The best part of the photo — for those not related to the players — is the location at The Parade, which is obvious because of the Basilica looming in the background. The year the photo was taken, 1925, was the year that the north end of Powderhorn Lake was filled in to create more athletic fields. I’ve spoken with one woman who remembered skating on the lake before the north end was filled. Do you remember that or know anyone who does?
The only other photo I’ve seen of early Powderhorn football players is this one from the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society.
Powderhorn football team, 1908 (Minnesota Historical Society)
Have you seen others? Let us know.
David C. Smith
The Myth of Murphy Square
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Minneapolis parks, Murphy Square
Comments (9) In Nimocks’ pamphlet, he tells the story of Edward Murphy who donated the first park to Minneapolis in July 1857—what is now Murphy Square near Riverside Avenue.
Murphy Square had plenty of trees when this photo was taken about 1905 (Sweet, Minnesota Historical Society)
“For years,” Nimocks wrote, “the land was used as a cow pasture, but on April 16th, 1873, Mr. Murphy secured an appropriation of $500 by the City Council for the purpose of fencing and setting out a row of trees around the park. Mr. Murphy expended this amount and a warrant was drawn on the City Treasurer to pay the same, which Mayor Ames refused to sign and the warrant was never paid.”
While searching early issues of the Minneapolis Tribune recently (thank you, thank you Hennepin County Library) I came across this four-sentence article in the July 3, 1874 edition.
The Murphy Bill
The Council voted on Wednesday to instruct the City Clerk to deliver to Mr. Edward Murphy his order which has been in chancery for the last year or two. Mr. Murphy called and received the order yesterday, and City Treasurer Laraway at once paid him the money thereon, principal and interest. The interest amounted to almost one hundred dollars. Mr. Murphy declares that as the Council has finally done tardy justice to him, he now proposes to improve and care for the park at his own expense.
The article makes little sense without the knowledge that Mr. Murphy had not been paid for his work at Murphy Park a year earlier. And even then, it’s not until the last sentence that we can infer what he may have been paid for: the improvement and care of a park. As Murphy’s park was the only one in the city at the time, the article offers evidence that Murphy was reimbursed for some work he did there.
Perhaps because the article appeared in the Tribune, not his Journal, Nimocks chose to overlook it. Next chance I get at the library I will see if the Journal made a similar report. On the other hand, Nimocks wrote his pamphlet nearly forty years after the event. He may have “misremembered”—at least the resolution of the problem.
There is little doubt however that someone planted trees in the park, because newspaper stories that mention the park in subsequent years refer to it as Murphy’s grove, as in “Swedish Lutheran Sabbath School will have a picnic in Murphy’s grove,” from the Tribune, July 3, 1880.
Still it’s nice to know that Edward Murphy, a civic-minded man with foresight, was not cheated by the city that benefited from his generosity. One other note: Edward Murphy was a member of the City Council that finally did him “tardy justice.” He was not without some influence.
Bravo Augsburg College and Park Board!
For anyone who missed the news in October—I did—Murphy Square will be maintained for the next five years by Augsburg College. The college will provide routine maintenance, such as mowing the grass and shoveling the sidewalks.
The college, which established a campus next to the undeveloped park in 1872, nearly surrounded the park by the 1930s. But what really made the park appear to be a part of the campus was the construction of I-94 in the 1960s. The freeway and its imposing sound wall formed a barrier at the south end of the park and the freeway prevented access from the residential neighborhoods to the south.
Card players at a table in Murphy Square about 1946. Buildings in background do not appear to be Augsburg College. (Phillip Dittes, Minnesota Historical Society)
Does anyone from the Franklin Avenue neighborhood south of Augsburg College — or Augsburg College students before the 1960s — remember the park before the freeway was built? Tell us your story.
David C. Smith
Pershing Field Scrapbooks
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Pershing Park, Southwest Activities Council (SWAC)
Leave a Comment Pershing Park recreation supervisor Marc Holtey recently pulled out some old scrapbooks at the park. One scrapbook was a collection of “guest books” from the Southwest Activities Council’s (SWAC) Annual Meetings, Open Houses and Winter Carnivals in the 1950s and 1960s. Among those who signed the books were many former park commissioners and park board employees. I noticed that Felix Dhainin and his wife signed the guest book for a few events. Dhainin was the park board’s landscape architect for many years beginning in the 1940s. Many guests added their addresses after their signatures, from which I learned that the Dhainins lived barely a block from the park. Another park board employee, Alice Dietz, one of the leaders of the recreation department since the early 1920s, also attended several 1950s events. If anyone can tell me more about Dhainin or Dietz, please do. They are two of hundreds of park board employees who were instrumental in building our park system.
Another signature that caught my attention in the Guest Book for the 11th Annual SWAC Winter Carnival, January 25 & 26, 1964: Mrs. Ray Rybak and children. We can surmise that the present-day Mayor of Minneapolis was in attendance at about the age of eight.
A second scrap book contained clips about SWAC from 1957-1959 from the Lake Harriet Courier. Some highlights:
- Attendance at 1958 Halloween parties sponsored by SWAC. Linden Hills: 250 children at an afternoon party; 225 teens for a dance that night after the Southwest-Roosevelt football game. Pershing: 350 children.
- Attendance at Pershing Field for a Friday night dance in January 1958: 130 junior teens and 200 senior teens. Live music was provided by the Jazz Knights.
- Attendance at the SWAC football banquet at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church: 320
I suspect that parks across the city had similar, staggering attendance at big events. Those may have been the glory days of park-sponsored activities for children. If you attended events like these in any park in Minneapolis, tell us about it.
Dick Yates was for many years a recreation supervisor at Longfellow, then Lynnhurst Park, before he became the head of special services for the park board in the 1970s. I interviewed Dick when I was researching City of Parks in 2007. When the book came out I asked Dick what he thought of it. He had one complaint: he didn’t think I captured the robustness of the dynamic playground programs of the 1950s and 1960s. I had to agree with him. The number of kids who participated in playground programs in those years was truly incredible by today’s standards. So help me correct that shortcoming of City of Parks. Let’s capture here some of the vitality of playground events in years past. Tell us the story.
A third scrapbook at Pershing was a book of photos. Most of them were of unidentified children and didn’t provide much information of historical interest. The two that I found most interesting were these.
Goalies weren’t protected then as they are now. Photo from 1958 Annual Report of the Southwest Activities Council (SWAC) (Photo courtesy of Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)
Memorial Day 1961, Pershing Park (Clair Peterson, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)
David C. Smith
Minneapolis Park Memory: Lake Harriet Hijinx
Filed under: Minneapolis Park Memory, Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Lake Harriet
Leave a Comment My favorite story of the Minneapolis parks was one autumn weekend night in 1968, when I was in 11th grade. The standard place for “couples” to go and “make out” was around Lake Harriet on the east shore. There was a lane for parking and the cars would line up as soon as it was dark. I was with a couple of buddies and we had a few M-80’s. We drove around the east shore until we saw a couple having at it in their car. Then the M-80 was lit and rolled strategically under their car and we waited for the explosion. The ensuing few seconds in the car of the “parkers” was always indescribably hilarious. Well, after surprising a couple in their car we peeled out and headed to our favorite spot “Porky’s Drive-In” on 58th and Lyndale Ave. So.
About two hours later there was a noticeable “buzz” at Porky’s. We asked what was up and we heard the story. Apparently someone had lit an M-80 around the east shore of Lake Harriet and part of the explosion flew across the street and started a fairly large brush fire on the slope that surrounds the lake on that shore. It was about three blocks long by about 40 yards wide. There had been “numerous” fire trucks called to put out the fire. OOPS.
Name withheld by request, Washburn High School, Class of 1970
Editors note: Our parkways have served many useful purposes!
The Minneapolis city council banned fireworks in the city, without a permit, in 1873. At the same time the council passed an ordinance banning the firing of guns, pistols and cannons within the city. Prior to the Fourth of July in 1890 the police chief noted that it was impossible to “rigidly” enforce the anti-fireworks ordinance, but urged his forces to prohibit the shooting of fireworks in “alleys, backyards or other restricted spaces.” At a time when most structures were made of wood, and so were sidewalks, that was probably prudent.
The first newspaper reference I can find to fireworks at Lake Harriet was in the Minneapolis Tribune, August 10, 1887. An article on the Knights of Labor picnic the day before, which was attended by an estimated crowd of 15,000 to 20,000 despite light rain, noted a “brilliant display of fireworks” from 9 to 9:30 p.m. This was the second annual picnic by the largest labor organization of its time, but the first at Lake Harriet. The inaugural K of L picnic had been held at Lake Calhoun — but had also featured fireworks.
Even in the late 1800s, fireworks were associated primarily with the Fourth of July. The first newspaper reference I found to Fourth of July fireworks at Lake Harriet was in a July 5, 1890 Minneapolis Tribune article on festivities around the city, which concluded with a tragic note. A. L. Wellington of 629 Sixth Street South died of injuries he suffered while superintending the fireworks display at Lake Harriet the night before. Fireworks had exploded prematurely on the raft from which Wellington worked about 500 feet from shore.
Do you have a fireworks story from a Minneapolis park? Were you in the car the M-80 was rolled under? Any other story of Minneapolis parks? Help us write the popular history of our parks. Tell us your story (see post from September 30.)
David C. Smith
Minneapolis Park History 