PARK AND CEMETERY. 
722 
PARK IMPROVEMENTS 
The improvements on Del Paso 
Park, Sacramento, Cal., are pro- 
gressing favorably. The winter’s 
work, for which preparations have 
been making, will include the plant- 
ing of some 5,000 trees of different 
varieties, mostly deciduous, the con- 
struction of about four miles of roads, 
and the sowing of possibly a couple 
hundred pounds of Bermuda grass 
seed. 
The city council committee on pub- 
lic grounds and buildings of Minne- 
apolis, Minn., has recently agreed to 
turn over the old city hall site in 
Bridge square for utilizing in connec- 
tion with the proposed Gateway Park 
improvements. The park board was 
given permission to use and maintain 
the property, but the title will remain 
in the city. 
The park commission of Fort 
Worth, Tex., has ordered 5,000 roots 
and bulbs for the down-town parks. 
These include flowers and shrubs 
which thrive here, and some which' 
will be planted as an experiment. 
The park commission proposes to 
spare no pains to make its small 
parks specially attractive as well as 
to greatly improve the large park 
situated in the outskirts. 
Newark, O., is starting on a cam- 
paign to improve city appearances, in 
connection with the Board of Trade. 
The Court House Park is to be im- 
proved and the dome illuminated. 
Shortness of funds such improve- 
ments is leading the business men to 
take a hand with a view of exploiting 
the city’s advantages. 
City Forester J. H. Prost of Chi- 
cago has sent a communication to the 
Special Parks Commission describing 
the work done in his department the 
past year and outlining that planned 
for the coming year. ,,The amount ex- 
pended in 1911 is as follows: Fores- 
ter’s salary, $2,000; tree laborers, 
$3,735; general supplies, $300; team- 
ing, $310; total, $6,345. Estimate for 
next year is $29,000. 
The proposed shelter house in Sun- 
set Park, Evansville, Ind., on the 
Japanese style, will be a reinforced 
concrete structure, and absolutely 
fireproof. The building has been de- 
signed by Brubaker, Stern & Boyle, 
architects, to make it harmonize with 
the surroundings and it will be pic- 
turesque, as well as bright and cheer- 
ful, with enough color in the tile roof 
to give life to the site. The pavilion 
as planned will be an oblong struc- 
ture, open on all sides, with an over- 
hanging cornice. The roof is flat and 
designed for a roof garden and also 
for seating during band concerts. The 
band stand is located at one end of 
the building in a tower effect. Toilets 
are provided in the basement, both 
for whites and colored, there being 
four separate compartments in all. 
Improvements to cost approxi- 
mately $5,000 will be made at Itasca 
Park, Minn., within the next year, 
according to estimates in the hands 
of W. T. Cox, state forester. Small 
rustic shelters are to be erected at 
Elk Springs, Rest Park and Beaver 
Dam, with open fire places in each. 
A cabin, boat house, wooden tower 
thirty feet high and combination cot- 
tage of peeled logs also are included. 
A log cabin in Burnside Park as 
headquarters will cost about $400. 
In the near future Milwaukee, Wis., 
will have a fine park on the lake 
shore between the harbor entrance 
and McKinley Park, and connected 
with Juneau Park by one or more 
bridges spanning the tracks of the 
Chicago & Northwestern road. A 
committee has been appointed by the 
Merchants and Manufacturers’ Asso- 
ciation to urge the city to provide a 
dumping place on the lake shore 
north of the harbor entrance. On 
the made ground created by the 
dumping of city waste an addition to 
Milwaukee’s lake shore parks will be 
laid out. 
Paterson, N. J., has awarded con- 
tracts for sidewalk improvements 
about alt the parks to the amount of 
$10,500. At Eastside and Westside 
Parks the surrounding paths have 
never been permanently Improved. 
All the ground about the small 
breathing spots recently taken over 
by the city will be laid with proper 
sidewalks. Another work to be taken 
up is the improvement of Sandy Hill 
Cemetery properties, recently ac- 
quired by the city to be turned into 
parks, which will be done by city 
employees, as was the case with 
Wrigley Park, recently completed. 
The old Baptist Cemetery on upper 
Market street will inaugurate a sys- 
tem of playgrounds, and it will be 
improved to that end. 
The park commissioners of Salinas, 
Cal., have decided upon improving 
the City Park. 
It is planned to build a parkway 
between Castlewood and Shawnee 
Park, Louisville, Ky., the right-of- 
way having been practically secured. 
Mr. Fred Nussbaumer, superin- 
tendent of St. Paul’s parks, will ad- 
vise the state authorities in the mat- 
ter of improving the new Ramsey 
State park near Redwood Falls, Minn. 
Mr. Christian Jensen, landscape ar- 
chitect of Wichita, Kas., has recently 
completed plans for the Genda Park 
addition to Genda Springs, a mineral 
spring health resort of Kansas. The 
practice of employing competent land- 
scape designers to lay out new town 
sites and additions is a healthy sign 
of the times and will surely pay. 
In response to a petition from the 
East End Improvement Club, Bartlett 
Park, St. Joseph, Mo., is to be enlarged 
to double its present size, by the addi- 
tion of ten acres on the south and the 
same number of acres on the east. The 
additional territory will be provided for 
in the ordinance establishing the south- 
east boulevard extension. The land to 
be acquired will be paid for by creating 
a benefit district. 
The gift of park lands by Messrs. 
George Urban and William H. Walker 
to Buffalo, N. Y., many obstacles in 
the way of improvements will be re- 
moved. The property is in the vicinity 
of Springer Ave. and Scajaquada Creek. 
The gift is greatly prized. 
Charles D. Lay, landscape architect 
of New York City Park Board, is at 
work on plans which will change the 
design of Battery Park to make it har- 
monize with the New Barge Office and 
the future Aquarium annex. The new 
plans include a scheme of tree planting 
to hide the elevated railroad tracks on 
the easterly side of the park and also 
the laying out of straight paths. 
Mrs. Eugenia H. Bragg, widow of C. 
C. Bragg, recently tendered to the Cin- 
cinnati Park Board as gift all the prop- 
erty belonging to her in the Bloody run 
district wanted by the board for the 
proposed parkway. The tract embraces 
from five to six acres of irregular di- 
mensions, lying east of Dana avenue, 
Avondale, and will give about 2,000 feet 
of park boulevard. The board had or- 
dered the condemnation of the entire 
Bloody run park scheme, but when the 
city solicitor’s office took the acquisition 
up wth Mrs. Bragg she made the hand- 
some offer to donate to the city what 
was wanted of her property. 
The steel town of Gary, Ind., laid 
sand dunes on the shore of Lake Mich- 
igan, is fast changing its landscape, 
out almost in the midst of the Indiana 
dunes will be the East Side park. The 
sand is being covered with black earth, 
and the work of planting has been vig- 
orously carried on. 
