PARK AND CEMETERY. 
7-30 
In anticipation of a great increase in 
the number of visitors to the national 
parks during the season 1915, when the 
Panama-Canal Exposition will be held 
in San Francisco, the Department of 
the Interior is reported to be planning 
extensive improvements in each of the 
parks, especially those in the Pacific 
Coast States. The work in contempla- 
tion in the Mount Rainier, Crater Lake, 
General Grant, Sequoia and Yosemite 
parks includes the repair of old roads, 
the construction of new ones, the cut- 
ting of trails, the building of bridges, 
the installation of new road sprinkling 
systems and the extension of the old 
ones, the construction of water supply 
and sewerage systems and general de- 
velopment. It is the intention of the 
department to make more places in the 
parks accessible, and to render travel 
more comfortable. 
Detailed plans and sketches of a per- 
manent park and boulevard system for 
Salt Lake City, Utah, which will pro- 
vide the city with an elaborate and up- 
to-date system have been approved and 
adopted by the board of park commis- 
sioners to be carried out in the future 
as rapidly as the financial condition of 
the parks department will permit. 
The Civic League of St. Louis, Mo., 
recently opened fire on the movement 
for overhanging street signs. The first 
shot was a report of the Signs and Bill- 
boards Committee of the League. This 
report, which has been approved by the 
Executive Board of the League, asserts 
that the repeal of the present ordinance 
restricting projecting signs to within 
eighteen inches from the building line 
would greatly increase the danger to 
life and property. 
The Washington, D. C., District Com- 
missioners’ plan for the purchase of 
land to be used as public parks and to 
be appropriated for from year to year 
has received the indorsement of the 
Chamber of Commerce. Its committee 
adopted the following resolutions : 
“Congress, during recent sessions, hav- 
ing been unwilling to appropriate for 
the purchase of land to be used as parks 
in the District of Columbia, the Chamber 
of Commerce, therefore, indorses the 
plan of the District Commissioners to 
provide for the purchase of land for 
park purposes in the District of Colum- 
bia appropriation bill from year to year, 
and in recommending the item for park 
purchases in the estimates to Congress 
the Commissioners of the District of 
Columbia should follow the plan as 
provided for b}- the park commission, 
such plan having heretofore been op- 
posed b}" Congress.” 
The Winston-Salem Board of Trade 
has inaugurated a movement to estab- 
lish a system of parks and a strong 
committee of representative citizens has 
been appointed for the purpose. The 
city has already started parking 
a beautiful site on West End 
Boulevard. A chain of small parks is 
contemplated, with a large centrally 
located park, to be accessible to all 
the people. 
The park buying campaign of Grand 
Rapids, Mich., is practically over and 
the $200,000 voted by the people will 
probably have added about 140 acres 
to the city’s park area, at an average 
price of about $1,400 an acre. The im- 
provement of this property will take 
time and patience, especially as the 
amount of money available for park 
improving purposes will never be large 
in any one year. The improvement of 
the thirt 3 ’-acre annex to John Ball park 
is well started, but there is much work 
to be done on it yet. The reservoir 
hill property probably will be the next 
to receive large attention. Plans for 
the improvement of the other newly 
acquired lands will be made as rapidly 
as possible. Grand Rapids has a park 
board alive to up-to-date activity. 
The park board of Mason City, la., 
has been criticized for its lack of busi- 
ness methods in a report submitted to 
the state municipal accounting depart- 
ment by one of the inspectors. The 
report says that the inspector is dis- 
appointed In the methods of the park 
board and recommends that it adopt a 
stricter business policy. Otherwise the 
report says that Mason City is well gov- 
erned. This is good ; let us have busi- 
ness methods in park work wherever 
possible. 
The City Hall Park, New York, has 
lost its last Ailanthus tree, as with its 
mates of the past it suddenly toppled 
over recently and pinned several people 
under its branches. It is an oriental 
tree which seems to have done well in 
Europe but in this country after a cer- 
tain life, it grows brittle at the roots and 
a gust of wind either breaks it short 
off, or uproots it. 
It is practically certain that the area 
of Fair Park, Dallas, Tex., will be in- 
creased in the near future by twelve and 
one-half acres of land. This will be a 
substantial and permanent improvement 
to the public’s great playground. The 
Fair Park is now about 138 acres in 
area. 
The Metropolitan Board of Tacoma, 
Y'ash., expects to spend $10,000 yearly 
along Cliff avenue. The Northern Pa- 
cific Ry. Co. has been negotiating to 
deed to the board the entire bluff be- 
tween Cliff and Pacific avenues from 
7th street north. This includes quite 
a piece of land. “The improvement of 
Cliff avenue property which the railway 
company intends to give the Board and 
the construction of a boulevard through 
the strip is just one step in the right 
direction,” says one of the Commission- 
ers. “The park area of the city is great 
enough now. What we need is more 
and better road connections between, 
them.” 
The Frank T. Howard Improvement 
Association, New Orleans, La., is devel- 
oping a plan to convert the old circus 
lot in Canal street, between Dupre and 
Gayoso, into an attractive park. 
The Park Board of Virginia, Minn., 
is planning to spend $25,000 next year in 
improving and enlarging the park sys- 
tem. 
Mr. O. C. Simonds, landscape gar- 
dener of Chicago, 111., while in Quincy, 
111., recently, inspecting the park sys- 
tem, much of which he has designed, 
called attention to the fact “that the 
park idea is spreading all over the 
country,” and cities and towns are tak- 
ing more interest in the beautification 
of their environments than ever before 
in the history of the country. Parks 
and boulevards, parkways, and pretty 
lawns are no longer looked upon as 
ornaments and luxuries to be enjoyed 
by the wealthy. Rather they are looked 
upon as assets with a real tangible 
value and as such, quite as much as for 
their aesthetic value, are to be fostered 
and developed. All of which is another 
good sign of the times. 
The Supreme Court of New Jersey 
has recently awarded to a citizen of 
Merchantville, N. J., $1,500 as damages 
for the loss of four shade trees by es- 
caping illuminating gas. The defend- 
ant was the Public Service Co. of that 
state, who bitterly fought the case. 
Thousands of trees are destroyed an- 
nually through carelessly laid gas 
mains. 
The Municipal Park & Development 
Co., Oklahoma City, Okla., of which 
Mr. Will H. Clark, organizer and for- 
mer head of the board of that city’s 
park system, is president, has recently 
issued a pamphlet describing the Ames 
Park addition to Oklahoma City, which 
