jS6 
PARK 
A N D C E M ETERY 
Developing Park Systems in Small Cities 
Address at Convention of American Civic Association, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 23, 
19^7, ^’.V Frederick Noble Evans, M. L. A., University of Illinois, Urbana, III. 
To deal in a lialf hour with the three- 
fold subject of acquiring, developing and 
maintaining park systems in small cities 
is a considerable task. Each part might 
be expanded into its full hour's discussion. 
To make any impression upon its bulk we 
must get at once to our task — a task a good 
deal like the evangelist's in this, that to 
reach the man who needs the gospel the 
message, like the old, old story, must be 
told in words familiar to many. 
Though cities of ever\- size need parks, 
the necessity of giving early consideration 
to the sul)ject is even more pressing upon 
the small than upon the large city, because 
it is when the town is still small that park 
areas can most readily he chosen and ac- 
quired. Towns and cities are like plaster 
figures. At first, in the plaster, by a simple 
smoothing over here and a poke there 
changes and conditions can be brought 
about in the soft material with little re- 
sistance. But there comes a time when 
pokes with the finger or even a modeling 
stick avail nothing. The plaster has set ; 
and changes in form can only he made by- 
chipping with an iron tool and hammer. 
Park acquirement is a difficult and expen- 
sive matter for a city after its *frame work 
has become set. 
We have heard much about the need for 
parks for purposes of recreation, as offer- 
ing a kind of antitoxin against the crowded 
life of our communities. That the laborer, 
his wife, and their children, and that un- 
married brother need a place where they 
can find the health-giving sight of grass 
and trees — a spot such as the city does not 
afford unless provision is made therefor — 
is something which we all as citizens, as 
users of city parks, already know. Rut do 
we know that an equally good argument 
for parks in our cities is that they often 
serve for protection to the community? 
A city in northeastern Ohio, offering fa- 
\orable sites for the iron and steel indus- 
try, was in danger of being entirely sur- 
rounded by smoke and fume-belching steel 
plants. A deep gorge ran along its west- 
ern, which was also its windward, side. This 
gorge contained a stream with plenty of 
water, a tributary to the river which flowed 
through the town. This ravine, an ex- 
tremely lieautiful and picturesque one, was 
about to be converted into sites for more 
steel works but for the foresightedness of 
a single lawyer of that town. Through his 
efforts the tract was saved for the city, as- 
suring to it not only a beauty spot of na- 
tional reputation, but — and this is the main 
point — protection to the town on its wind- 
ward side with freedom from dirt and 
fumes, a thing very precious in that sort 
of a community. Every town can take a 
lesson from this. An important thing to 
note is that such a step can be taken with 
proper economy only at a time before the 
town has grown to be a city of consider- 
able size. 
To continue for a moment further on 
this idea of parks for protection, we have 
only to call to mind that the only sure 
way for a town to protect itself against 
an unsightly waterfront of a filth-bearin.g 
stream is to take over that waterfront or 
stream as a public reservation and to carry 
out some such heroic and restorative treat- 
ment as has been done in the waterways 
of the Bronx, New York. The large cit.\- 
has problems to face in this last instance 
which might have been eliminated had 
the city taken heed to the matter when 
the town was in the small city class. Are 
not such facts a direct appeal to the small 
town to take thought for the morrow while 
there is 5et time? 
-A point of great encouragement in park 
work is the old principle that land of little 
value for other purposes will often make 
the best park site; the despised water- 
front, the abandoned quarry, the high tract 
with its stony outcrops to which houses 
creep usually with reluctance, can often be 
converted with comparatively little expense 
into a bit of natural reservation which 
.grows more and more precious to the com- 
munity and more appreciated by it as time 
goes on. 
The term “park systems’’ implies a con- 
nection of parts united in one whole. It 
does not necessarily mean a chain of many 
parks connected by elaborate boulevards — 
though it may be so applied. Let us con- 
sider the term “park system” in a sense ap- 
plicable to the city. Can we not properly 
use it to imply a unity of purpose — a bring- 
ing together of single park units with the 
aim of thereby serving a single function? 
The small city should be able to gather in- 
spiration from this use of the term and 
to learn a lesson from it as well. The 
city which has two parks, however small, 
may be said to have a park system, pro- 
vided that the parks together fulfill a pur- 
pose, while the city of more parks per 
square yard of city map may find that it 
has not a park system at all, because its 
parks serve no single purpose, and are so 
situated and so exploited as perhaps to 
benefit one locality at the expense of an- 
other. 
The parks of the small as well as the 
large city should then, if rightly handled, be 
regarded as a park system for several rea- 
sons. Considering them as a system pro- 
motes ease of administration — the rules and 
principles of development applxing to one 
park apply to all. A more parallel devel- 
opment is assured. We do not think kindly 
of the mother of the household who dresses 
one child at the e.xpense of the others, and 
similarly the small city, though great is 
sometimes the temptation, should not lavish 
all its funds and attention on one park 
while another it waiting idle and bare. It 
is better to develop all evenly as far as 
finances will allow. 
Regarding the parks of the community 
as belonging to a real system, or whole, pro- 
motes appreciation of them by the citizen 
body. The taxpayer feels that there is 
being built up in the community something 
tangible, beneficial and worthy of his pride. 
The work may progress slowly, but with 
the park system in mind and the system 
idea applied in park business results can in 
the end be accomplished. 
The park system does not and need not 
consist of units of similar size, because the 
stuff that parks are made of is various. 
Here a street remnant, an area formed by 
the intersection of several thoroughfares,, 
may offer an opportunity for a refreshing 
glimpse of grass amid city streets. There 
a larger area may afford, even near the cen- 
ter of town, an opportunity for trees, seats 
and shaded walks. 
In the main our city parks can be divided 
into three kinds or groups. First, the di- 
vision of street remnants offers an oppor- 
tunity for grass plots or perhaps a monu- 
ment setting. Such parks are apt to be 
irregular in form. Second, the city block 
type of park, usually rectangular and oc- 
cupying a part or all of a city block. 
Thirdly, the natural or country park, usu- 
alh' at the edge of town. These groups are 
mentioned, not from pleasure derived in 
pigeonholing things, but because the divi- 
sions themselves suggest the method of 
their acquirement by the city. 
The motive prompting the acquirement of 
each of these types of parks is, respectively, 
the aim at restoration, of anticipation and 
reservation. 
The street remnant park is as a rule the 
result of an attempt at restoration. The 
small traffic open space or “passing through 
square,’’ as it has been aptly called, has 
had restored to it, by a very slight exercise 
of civic authority, the green that it had 
lost. Such parks are very important beauty 
spots for the city. 
The city block park is usually acquired 
by methods of anticipation. In the ideal 
case, as the streets of the small town are 
plotted there are marked off at certain in- 
tervals blocks to be reserved as parks. 
“Residence parks” is another term to apply 
