PARK AND CEMETERY. 
41 
ASKED AND ANSWERED 
A newly elected park superintendent 
writes to offer the following question 
for discussion, and Park and Cemetery 
should be glad to hear from its readers 
on this or any other practical subject of 
park management : 
“What should be the qualifications of 
a competent superintendent of public 
parks ?” 
PARK IMPROVEMENTS 
E. T. Jenny has the contract for the 
landscape improvement of Oak Park 
and La Belle View Park, at Steuben- 
ville, O. 
Park Superintendent J. W. Thomp- 
son of Seattle, Wash., is making many 
improvements this season. Volunteer 
Park is being developed on plans by 
Olmsted Brothers of Brookline, Mass. ; 
the new boulevard, between W ashing- 
ton Park and the Exposition grounds, 
and the roadway to Schmitz Park are 
also being completed. 
The late Mary E. Perkins has left 
$5,000 to the city of Brockton, Mass., 
for the purchase or improvement of 
public parks. 
State Surveyor Nelson of Mitchell, 
S. D., has made a survey of the state 
capitol grounds at Pierre, with a view 
to parking the tract. 
The Common Council of Niagara 
Falls, N. Y., has voted $500 for the 
equipment of playgrounds. 
Improvements in the three park sys- 
tems of Chicago this season will, it is 
estimated, cost about $1,000,000 ; of this 
sum the Lincoln. Park board probably 
will spend $400,000, the West Park sys- 
tem $350,000, and the South Park sys- 
tem $250,000. The new refectory in 
Lincoln Park, recently illustrated in 
these pages, is expected to ,be' completed 
by June 1. 
Dallas, Tex., park board has voted to 
buy the eighteen-acre tract known as 
Oak Lawn for a park. 
The park board of Harrisburg, Pa., 
has been authorized to purchase thirteen 
acres for a park in South Harrisburg. 
George C. Jones has donated to Ap- 
pleton, Wis., land in the big ravine for 
a park. 
George B. Burrows has donated to 
the park association of Madison, Wis., 
half of his Baywood estate for a park. 
Coldwater, Mich., has purchased a 22- 
acre tract for a park. 
It is reported that almost a block of 
Riverside Park, Memphis, Tenn., has 
caved into the Mississippi, and George 
E. Kessler, the landscape architect of 
the system, is to make plans to stop the 
damage. A new conservatory is to be 
built in Overton Park. 
O. F. Conklin has donated to Raven- 
na, O., twenty-three acres for a play- 
ground. 
The bill providing an appropriation 
of $2,000,000 for the enlargement of 
the capitol grounds at Harrisburg, Pa., 
has passed the legislature. It provides 
for the purchase of nineteen acres of 
land and the expenditure of $400,000 a 
year for five years. 
Arbor Day at Sunnyside, Wash., was 
celebrated by the formal dedication of 
three new parks. The exercises in- 
cluded addresses out of doors by Mayor 
H. W. Turner and others. 
The Women’s Improvement Club of 
Orland, Cal., will lay out and improve 
a public park which has been donated 
by W. E. Spence and R. A. Pabst. 
J. H. G. Gilbert of Ware, Mass., has 
presented- that town a large park tract 
on the Ware River. 
The Hudson County, N. J., Board of 
Freeholders has authorized a bond issue 
of $2,000,000 for a park in Jersey City. 
M. Brook has presented to Menomi- 
nee, Wis., a three-acre park on the Red 
Cedar River. 
George N. Merrill, landscape engi- 
neer of Springfield, Mass., has been en- 
gaged to make plans for laying out a 
model residential subdivision in Meri- 
den, Conn. 
Henry Graham, recently appointed 
superintendent of parks at Terre Haute, 
Ind., will begin his work with extensive 
improvements at Collett 'Park. 
The Munson-Whitaker Co., tree and 
forestry experts, of New York, have 
the contract for extensive tree doctor- 
ing operations in the parks of Cedar 
Rapids. Edwin D. Philbrick, Chicago 
manager of this firm, was in direct 
charge of the work. Councilman Kef- 
fer, who is in charge of the depart- 
ment of parks under Cedar Rapids’ new 
commission form of government, is do: 
ing a large amount of tree planting this 
season. 
George E. Kessler of Kansas City 
has been appointed consulting landscape 
architect of the St. Louis Park system 
at a salary of $500 a month. He will 
have immediate supervision over the 
improvement of the World’s Fair site 
in Forest Park. The plans for this 
tract call for a shelter house, a monu- 
ment to Thomas Jefferson, an amphi- 
theater and bandstand and terraces and 
sunken gardens, extending from the 
shelter house to the lake. One of the 
most important works he will be called 
upon to do will be the laying out of six 
small parks in North and South St. 
Louis and the improvement of King’s 
Flighway. 
The City Council of Waco, Tex., has 
appropriated $5,500 toward the purchase 
of the Sul Ross park, embracing two 
blocks in the center of town, secured 
through the efforts of the Civic League. 
It is expected to spend $15,000 in im- 
proving it. 
Two handsome entrance gates are to 
be erected for Jackson Park, Chatta- 
nooga, Tenn. Commissioner Ross Fax- 
on is in charge of the work. 
Henry H. Loomis has presented to 
Geneva, N. Y., the tract known as 
Loomis Woods for a park, and Mrs. 
Elizabeth S. Miller has donated $2,500 
for the erection of a drinking foun- 
tain. 
Col. Webb Hayes of Fremont, O., 
has deeded to the state of Ohio a tract 
known as Spiegel Grove which is to be 
cared for by the Ohio Archaeological 
and Historical Society. It will be 
named the Harrison Trail State Park. 
Axel C. Pharo-Gagge of Columbus, 
O., has been employed to renovate and 
doctor the trees on the capitol grounds 
at Columbus, and will also carry out 
improvements on the historic estate of 
Governor Worthington near Chillicothe 
which is now the property of George 
Smith of Chillicothe. 
George True has presented True’s 
Woods to Port Clinton, N. Y., for a 
park on condition that 800 trees be 
planted, and other improvements made. 
This year’s park budget for Grand 
Rapids, Mich., calls for the erection of 
a new pavilion in John Ball Park to 
cost $20,000, an expenditure of $2,000 
for playgrounds, and $2,000 for spray- 
ing against Tussock Moth and other in- 
sect pests. The total budget calls for 
$65,348. Commissioners Herman G. 
Barlow and Lester J. Rindge are in 
charge of the erection of the pavilion 
which is to be in the Swiss chalet style 
of architecture. 
The park board of Denver, Col., has 
adopted the plans for the elaborate 
Civic Center improvements involving 
the condemnation and parking of much 
property in the center of the city, at an 
e.xpenditure of about $3,000,000. The 
proposition will be submitted to the vote 
of the East Denver Park District, on 
which the assessment will be levied. 
