GENERAL PLANNING OF A PARK SYSTEM 39 



While the ownership and control of forest parks or reservations may 

 be vested in municipal authorities, these areas, in contrast to most of the 

 other types of recreation properties heretofore mentioned, may be owned 

 and controlled by other public agencies, sucl? as the township, county, 

 state and Federal Government. In a few instances special commissions 

 known as Metropolitan Park Commissions have been created by state 

 legislation to purchase, develop and operate such areas in the vicinity of 

 large cities. In not a few instances large outlying reservations, owned and 

 controlled by water departments, boards or commissions of cities, provide 

 some of the services of forest parks or reservations. 



Typical examples of these various types of ownership are as follows: 



a. Municipal ownership. I. The mountain forest park areas com- 

 prising 10,239.14 acres (1925) owned by the city of Denver, Colorado, and 

 Phoenix Mountain Park of 15,080 acres under the control of the city of 

 Phoenix, Arizona, are two among many examples of outlying parks owned 

 and controlled by municipalities throughout the country. 



2. There are many examples of large outlying areas of land and 

 water under the control of municipal water departments which in some 

 instances are used, or parts of them so used, as recreation areas. One of 

 the notable examples is that of Lake Worth Reservation at Fort Worth, 

 Texas. This reservation comprises over 9,000 acres, of which approximately 

 2,779 acres are definitely dedicated to park and recreation purposes. 



b. Townships. In several states, townships are authorized by law to 

 acquire parks and forest reservations. Near Youngstown, Ohio, is a large 

 township park comprising approximately 850 acres of land and water, 

 under the control of a township park commission. In Massachusetts, 

 numbers of "towns" (townships) have acquired areas known as "town 

 forests" -wooded tracts designed primarily for the growing of timber, but 

 which may be used recreationally by the people living in the near-by vil- 

 lages and cities, very much the same as though they were outlying forest 

 parks. Municipalities in Massachusetts are also authorized by law to 

 acquire such forest tracts. 



The town forest is a comparatively new type of area in this country, 

 although in Europe it is centuries old. The distinction between a town or 

 municipal forest and a municipal forest park reservation is that the former 

 is held primarily for economic purposes and only incidentally for recreation, 

 while the latter is for recreation primarily. 



c. Counties. The Cook County Forest Preserve Commissioners, 

 Cook County, Illinois; the Westchester County Park Commission of West- 

 chester County, New York; Essex and Union County Park Commissions 

 in those counties of New Jersey, are among the notable examples of county 



