Archive for the ‘The Parade’ Tag
Joe Lillard Superstar
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Joe Lillard, Minneapolis football, The Parade
Comments (6) Very few people in the crowd of 15,000 fans who watched the Sunday afternoon park league football game between the Foshays and the Christian Lindsays at Parade field in Minneapolis knew they were watching one of the greatest American athletes of their time. Newspaper coverage of the game, which the Foshays won 26-0, noted only that Joe Lillard played fullback, led the interference on a touchdown run by a teammate, and kicked two extra points. Two weeks earlier, however, the Minneapolis Tribune reported that in the Foshays’ 19-0 win Joe Lillard had played in “his customary brilliant manner” leading the Foshays offense with “a series of spectacular runs.”
The year was 1928. There were no bleachers at the Parade football field, everyone stood. The sponsor of Lillard’s team was W.B. Foshay, whose company was nearing completion of a new business tower in downtown Minneapolis — the tallest building between Chicago and San Francisco. And, although none of the Minneapolis newspapers mentioned it, Joe Lillard was Black. On the football field, he did it all. He blocked, ran, passed, caught, defended, punted and drop-kicked extra points.
Many sports fans then and later knew Lillard as different things, like the proverbial blind men coming to terms with an elephant. Iowans already knew Lillard as an all-state high school football, basketball and track star from Mason City, a small city about 150 miles south of Minneapolis.
Basketball fans in Chicago, and well beyond, already knew Lillard as one of the best basketball players in the country. He had been one of the stars of the newly formed Savoy Big Five playing at the Savoy ballroom in Chicago in the 1927-1928 season. After the Savoys had beaten the vaunted Pittsburgh Loendis twice that year, Cum Posey of the Loendis claimed Lillard was the best player on that superb Savoy team. In case the name isn’t familiar, Cumberland Posey has been enshrined in both the baseball and basketball halls of fame, so he knew something about players with skills. In his later years, Lillard played some for the Harlem Globe Trotters, but for several winters in his prime he headlined his own successful barnstorming basketball team.
Doc Spears, the corpulent head football coach of the universities of Minnesota, Oregon and Wisconsin in the 1930s, and a real doctor, once called Lillard the greatest all-around athlete he had ever seen. In slightly different language, Brooklyn Times-Union sports writer Irwin Rosee noted in 1934 that Lillard “has generally been recognized as the most versatile colored athlete.” Rosee was writing about Lillard not as a football or basketball player, but as a pitcher for the Chicago American Giants of the Negro League. Two years earlier a Madison, Wisconsin newspaper baseball writer asserted that Lillard “would be pitching in the major leagues if there were not a color ban.” By the way, Lillard could hit and field a little too; he played right field when he wasn’t on the mound for some of the best itinerant baseball teams of the 1930s.
Lillard did make the major leagues in his day in one sport: football. That might be the only reason we know of his athletic prowess. In 1932 the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals signed Lillard as a running back who also substituted as a quarterback thanks to his potent arm. Lillard followed in the footsteps of Fritz Pollard, Bobby Marshall, Duke Slater, Paul Robeson and only a handful of other African Americans who had integrated professional football in the 1920s and 1930s. But Lillard is known today as a football player primarily because he was the last Black man to play in the NFL for 13 years. After Lillard’s second season with the Cardinals, when he was among league leaders as a runner, passer and kicker, he wasn’t offered another contract. The league’s owners refused to hire another Black man from then until the new Los Angeles Rams were pressured into signing UCLA great Kenny Washington before they started playing in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1946.
Joe Lillard and Kenny Washington, the two men who stood on either end of that 13-year gap of whiteness in the NFL, knew each other well. In April 1945, as World War II was winding down, the USO (United Service Organization) arranged a tour of prominent Black athletes to visit American troops around the world. It was one of many tours featuring entertainers and athletes intended to boost troop morale. Incidentally, both men were coming off their own tours in the military during the war.
Joining Lillard and Washington on the tour were boxer Henry Armstrong and baseball and basketball great Bill Yancey. Armstrong was the most famous of the group because he had held world championship boxing titles in three weight classes at the same time. This was when boxing got more ink in the nation’s newspapers year round than any other sport. Boxing trainer and commentator Teddy Atlas last year selected Armstrong as the greatest boxer — ever. Yancey isn’t as well known today, but as a basketball player for the great New York Rens and a shortstop in the Negro Leagues he would have been known to sports fans, especially young Black soldiers.
The highly successful USO tour lasted three months and circled the globe. Led by sportswriter Dan Burley, the athletes visited Pacific islands, the Phillipines, China, Burma, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Jerusalem, Egypt, and, after crossing North Africa, finally jumped back across the Atlantic from Casablanca to New York.
I wonder what the old NFLer and the future NFLer talked about on those long flights. The two men, both policemen at the time, Lillard in New York and Washington in LA, probably wondered when a Black man would get another chance in the NFL. Just six months after their tour, Washington was signed to fill Lillard’s long-empty shoes. That was still more than a year before Washington’s football teammate at UCLA, Jack Robinson, broke the color barrier in baseball.
We would know a whole lot more about Joe Lillard if he had been white or had lived a few decades later. As it is, Minneapolis can lay small claim to Lillard as a resident and standout athlete in city parks for a couple years. He moved to Minneapolis after leaving Mason City high school in 1927 to be with his girlfriend from Minneapolis, Jewel Bannarn. They were married that year. Lillard’s name doesn’t show up in Minneapolis directories of that time, but he said later that he worked at the Nicollet Hotel on Washington Avenue and Rogers Cafe on South Fourth St. He apparently only played football in the Minneapolis park league for the 1928 and 1929 seasons before heading for the University of Oregon and later the Chicago Cardinals. The only time he was listed in a Minneapolis directory was 1930 when he and Jewell were listed as residing on East Franklin Avenue with her parents and brothers. His occupation was listed then as “ball player” — a more talented one, pick your sport, than many people appreciated at the time.
There is much more to the Joe Lillard story, but that will be a part of a larger work now in progress. I’ll let you know when and where that will be available.
David Carpentier Smith
© 2021 David Carpentier Smith 2021
Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is 25
Filed under: Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Armory Garden, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, The Parade
Leave a comment Happy 25th Birthday Minneapolis Sculpture Garden!
Sorry, I forgot to inform you of the original air date of tpt’s history of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It premiered last Sunday evening on tpt/MN. The half-hour documentary was made to celebrate the 25th birthday of an extraordinary public space.
The program will air again at various times throughout the summer. Check tpt schedules or watch it here.
Producer Mark Fischer and executive producer Tom Trow did an excellent job telling the story; they even let me be in it!
The Sculpture Garden was a collaboration between the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, which owns and maintains the land, and the Walker Art Center, which designed the garden and selected the sculptures. It’s a Minnesota treasure.
The following photos show the transformation of part of the Sculpture Garden when the Armory Garden was created in 1913.
The southern half of the Sculpture Garden site before it was designated to become a garden in 1913, looking southwest, Armory in background, Walker Art Center site at left, Lyndale Avenue in lower left, Kenwood Parkway, now closed at right. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)
The same site as above ready for planting for the 1913 convention of the Society of American Florists and Ornamental Horticulturists. (Minneapolis Collection, Hennepin Country Library)
The 1913 Armory Garden. The photo was taken from the Palace Hotel between The Parade and Loring Park. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)
Whether you love the Sculpture Garden, or don’t really care, it is a remarkable use of parkland — one of many examples in the Minneapolis park system. As I said in the video, I think the transformation of one corner of a recreation park into an art park is a remarkable example of how the use of public land can — and should — change over time. It’s another tribute to the wisdom of those who envisioned the park system and the need to set aside land for public enjoyment. Because we own the land, we can adapt its use to meet our needs, however they may be defined and redefined. Brilliant!
The same land in the photos above, but seen from the south. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)
When’s the last time you visited the Sculpture Garden? Maybe it’s time to take another look.
David C. Smith
© 2013 David C. Smith
The Beginnings of a Garden
Filed under: Minneapolis parks | Tags: Armory Garden, Kenwood Garden, Louis Boeglin, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, The Parade, Theodore Wirth
Comments (1) 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 was known for his passion for gardens—and also for hiring a talented full-time park florist, Louis Boeglin—asked the park board to approve preparing a square of ground next to the Minnesota National Guard Armory for a garden. At least for a summer.
The Society of American Florists and Ornamental Horticulturists (SAFOH) were holding their national convention at the Armory in August 1913. The Armory had been built in 1906 between Kenwood Parkway and Vineland Place adjacent to a park known as The Parade. To the east of the Armory, bordering on Lyndale Avenue, was an empty plot of ground that Thomas Lowry had donated to the park board in 1906. It was that square that Wirth asked for. The park board approved Wirth’s request the day he made it — March 4, 1913 — for the “free use” of the space by SAFOH for “an extensive display of outdoor plants consisting of the best adapted hardy and tender plants that can be used for the decoration of public and private grounds and of plant novelties that are not yet known to many florists.”
The green space to the right of the Armory was the site of the SAFOH Garden. Lyndale Avenue is at right. Kenwood Parkway, which no longer goes through, is at top. Thomas Lowry’s residence is where the Walker Art Center is now. (Atlas of Minneapolis 1914, reflections.mndigital.org)
To prepare for this test garden, the board authorized Wirth to provide the property with “the necessary dressing of good loam,” which the board would pay for from funds allocated for The Parade.
As recently as 1911 Wirth had proposed to use the space for tennis courts, in keeping with the active recreation focus of the park, but those courts were not built. (See plan in 1911 Annual Report.)
The Minneapolis Tribune enthused that the garden would be one of the “most beautiful and extraordinary displays that the city has ever enjoyed.” The Tribune estimated (April 20) that some bulbs to be planted, which began arriving from florists around the country in April, were valued at up to $100 each and, therefore, a guard would be posted at the garden site.
As the dates of the convention approached much was written in local newspapers about the floral display that would inform and entertain 1,500 guests from around the country who would make Minneapolis the “floral capital of the country” for a week (Tribune, August 10, 1913). Private railroad cars were to bring florists from the major eastern cities and so many florists were coming from, or through, Chicago that both the Milwaukee Road and Great Northern had dedicated trains from there solely for convention goers. 
The Tribune observed that membership in the Society was “coveted” because there was an “exchange of courtesies” among members, such as the “invaluable service” of a “telegraph order system between cities.” Many of us have used the FTD—originally Florists’ Telegraph Delivery—system, which was created in 1910, only a few years before the Minneapolis convention. The image of Mercury, at left, was first used in 1914.
The garden was such a huge hit—with florists and Minneapolis citizens—that one park commissioner recommended keeping the garden and naming it the Wirth Botanical Garden. Wirth, who was vice president of the national society before the convention, was unanimously elected president of the national organization while it was in session in Minneapolis.
The 1913 garden adjacent to the Armory, looking southwest from the intersection of Lyndale Avenue, coming in from left, and Kenwood Parkway, at right. The photo was taken from the Plaza Hotel between The Parade and Loring Park. The garden is now part of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. (MPRB)
The park board did support the continuation of the garden the following year and it became a popular attraction for decades, in part because of the labels that identified the plants. But the garden was never named for Wirth. It was referred to as the “Armory Garden” until the Armory was demolished in 1934. At that time the land where the Armory stood was donated to the park board. After that the garden became known as “Kenwood Garden.” Those floral gardens, introduced as a concept 100 years ago next week, unquestionably facilitated the current use of the grounds as quite a different type of garden.
For the rest of the garden’s story, look for a documentary being produced by tpt and the Walker Art Center this spring in celebration of the 25th birthday of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. It is scheduled to premier in late May.
David C. Smith
NOTE May 30,2013: The tpt documentary can now be viewed here.
© David C. Smith 2013
You Think a Dog Park Was Controversial?
Filed under: Minneapolis parks | Tags: Dr. Martin Luther King Park, Dr. Strangelove, Nicollet Park, The Parade
Comments (1) After holding public hearings and receiving “various communications objecting to it,” on April 20, 1960, the Minneapolis park board rescinded an agreement with Minneapolis Civil Defense to build a “demonstration atomic bomb fallout protective shelter” in Nicollet Park. The board granted permission to build the demonstration fallout shelter at The Parade instead. Was it ever built? I don’t know.
This 1960 instructional booklet included plans for a fallout shelter, presumably similar to the one Minneapolis Civil Defense wanted to build at The Parade. This image is from authentichistory.com. The booklet is also available for sale on e-Bay at the time of this posting–if you’re still worried, or think it would do any good.
In 1968 Nicollet Park was renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Park. The park was the focus of bitter debate over the past year. The issue was whether converting a small portion of the park into an off-leash dog park would desecrate the memory of Dr. King. The dog park was not built.
During the 1960 meeting at which the board approved the fallout shelter, it also granted permission to the Twin City Walk for Peace Committee to hold an open air meeting at The Parade at the conclusion of a “peace walk.”
As a point of reference, Stanley Kubrick’s classic film of the atomic-bomb age, Dr. Strangelove, was released in 1964.
David C. Smith
Lost Minneapolis Parks: Virginia Triangle
Filed under: Lost Minneapolis Parks, Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Loring Park, Minneapolis parks, Smith Triangle, The Parade, Thomas Lowry, Virginia Triangle
Comments (3) Can you tell where this photo was taken? The land in the foreground is a lost Minneapolis park: Virginia Triangle.
Virginia Triangle 1938 (Minnesota Historical Society)
Virginia Triangle was at the intersection of Hennepin and Lyndale avenues; the cross street is Groveland Avenue. Hennepin crosses left to right and Lyndale right to left. The photographer was facing north. That’s the Basilica straight ahead, St. Mark’s to the right, with the trees in Loring Park between them. To your immediate right (out of the picture) is Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church. On your left, just past the cross street, is Walker Art Center. Beyond that is The Parade, athletic fields when this picture was taken, but now the home of the Sculpture Garden.
Isn’t this view lovely compared to the freeway interchanges, tunnels, etc. of today? The park board put up and decorated a huge Christmas tree in the triangle each year. I don’t know when that practice began or ended, but I’ll try to find out. If you know, send me a note.
An important memorial was installed at Virginia Triangle in 1915. The park board did not pay for the memorial but agreed that it could be placed in the park triangle. Whose memorial was it? This photo was taken at the dedication. ( That’s Hennepin Methodist church across Lyndale Avenue in the background, Hennepin Avenue in foreground.)
Virginia Triangle in 1915
He had something to do with urban transit and his mansion was immediately to the left of the photographer when this picture was taken. An avenue in north Minneapolis is named for him. He donated part of the land for The Parade and paid to have it developed into a park.
Here is his statue as part of the memorial that was put on the triangle.
Virginia Triangle Memorial (Charles Hibbard, Minnesota Historical Society)
This is what Rev. Dr. Marion Shutter said when he spoke to the crowd gathered at the dedication above:
How grandly has the sculptor done his work! This heroic figure needs no emblazoned name to identify the original. It seems almost as if Karl Bitter (the sculptor) had stood by the door of that little Greek temple at Lakewood (cemetery), and had said: ‘Thomas Lowry, come forth.’
Virginia Triangle was acquired by the Minneapolis park board on the first day of the last century. A.W. French and his wife donated the property to the park board in a swap. The Frenches had originally donated a piece of land for Hennepin Avenue Parkway, but apparently wanted that piece back and offered what became Virginia Triangle instead. The park board accepted on January 1, 1900. The best guess is that the name of the triangle comes from “Virginia Flats,” the apartment building behind the memorial in the photo above according to a 1903 plat map.
Thomas Lowry was joined on the triangle by another statue for a time during the summer of 1931. The Knights Templar held their conclave in Minneapolis that year and requested permission to erect life-sized statues of knights on horses throughout the city. The request was approved by the park board on the condition that all park properties be returned to their original condition without cost to the park board at the conclusion of the conclave.
Knights Templar statue at The Gateway, 1931 (Minnesota Historical Society)
The statue at Virginia Triangle was probably similar to this one placed at The Gateway during the conclave. Other statues were placed at The Parade and Lyndale Park.
Virginia Triangle was eventually lost to freeway construction when I-94 was built through the city. With freeway entrances and exits needed for Hennepin and Lyndale, the triangle had to be removed even though the freeway itself was put underground below Lowry Hill and Virginia Triangle.
The state highway department paid the park board $24,300 for the triangle in 1966, plus the actual cost of relocating the Lowry Memorial. The park board chose another triangle about a half-mile south on Hennepin Avenue at 24th Street as the new site for Thomas Lowry. The low bid for moving the memorial to the new site at Smith Triangle in 1967 was $38,880.
The inscription on Lowry’s memorial reads:
Be this community strong and enduring — it will do homage to the men who guided its youth.
David C. Smith
© 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
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
Was landscape architect Warren Manning the first to propose a public golf course in a Minneapolis park?
Filed under: Landscape Architects, Minneapolis Golf Courses, Minneapolis Parks: General | Tags: Horace Cleveland, Minneapolis golf, Minneapolis parks, Sculpture Garden, The Parade, Thomas Lowry, Warren Manning
Comments (2) Under the headline “Fine Park Is Assured”, the Minneapolis Tribune ran a story on November 15, 1903 that contained details I had never seen on plans for a golf course and baseball field in a Minneapolis park. The basic facts of the article are well-known: Thomas Lowry, along with William Dunwoody and Seurity Bank, offered to donate land at the foot of Lowry Hill for what eventually became The Parade.
What was new (to me) in the story was that when Lowry submitted his proposal to donate land down the hill from his mansion he also submitted designs for the park. The plans were prepared by well-known landscape architect Warren Manning at Lowry’s request. Lowry also offered to foot the cost of implementing Manning’s plan. Lowry eventually did donate thousands of dollars to help the park board convert the land to a park, but Manning’s plans were never mentioned in park board records.
Minneapolis Park History 