Rockaway peninsula for a public park. 
The total sum to be paid to the company 
is $1,316,458.33. 
Pontiac, Mich., is considering the devel- 
opment of a park system. 
The Iowa legislature is favorably con- 
sidering a measure providing for the levy 
of a half-mill tax for the purpose of im- 
proving the capitol grounds. 
Tuscon, Ariz., will have a park commis- 
son, and a fund will be provided for taking 
care of its parks. 
A bill has been passed by the Ohio legis- 
lature by which all parks owned or here- 
after obtained by cities will be under the 
control of the park board. It was framed 
to overcome the necessity of having city 
parks controlled by more than one body. 
Detroit, Mich., is seriously considering a 
more comprehensive plan for laying out 
and developing a large park system. The 
Park Board is looking to the construction 
of a large outward boulevard, which will 
include a great portion of the city. To 
this end a number of parcels of land has 
been secured. Detroit's park system was 
begun in 1854. 
The Park and Cemetery Commissioners 
of Grand Rapids, Mich., have asked the 
council for practically $101,000 for work 
to be done the coming year. The receipts 
for the park funds for the year were 
$81,888, and the disbursements were $80,- 
434.77. Maintenance and improvements 
cost $102,342.44. Labor items figure largely 
in the report. With a trifle over. $102, 000 
expended last year, the board now asks for 
nearly that sum for the coming year. 
Thirteen years before Chicago was even 
surveyed and platted and only five years 
after the Fort Dearborn massacre, the then 
thriving town of Cincinnati, O., received 
its first public gift of land for park pur- 
poses. In April, 1817, an acre of land was 
donated to their fellow townsmen by John 
H. and Benjamin Piatt, to be used as r> 
market space. The total acreage of all 
park property in Cincinnati now amounts 
to nearly thirteen hundred acres, which, 
apart from the value of many other gen- 
erous donations, has cost the city nearly 
four and one-half millions of dollars. The 
tract of one acre given the city by the 
Brothers Platt was protected by an ordi- 
nance passed by the council, and was used 
as a park as early as 1843. A quarter of a 
century later, in 1858, it was formally ded- 
icated to park use and is now known as 
Garfield Park. 
An initiatory petition, constituting the 
first application in Little Rock, Ark., of a 
law passed by the last legislature, giving 
a majority of the property holders of any 
district the power to form an improve- 
ment district and condemn any property 
in the district for the purposes of estab- 
lishing a public park, has been filed with 
the City Council. 
Snyder Park, the pride of Springfield, 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
O., was at one time during the recent flood 
disaster almost a complete waste of water 
and drift. Great damage was done. 
Bechtle bridge, a $12,000 concrete struc- 
ture, was torn completely in tw'O. 
The South Park Board of Chicago has 
approved the preliminary steps toward the 
fulfillment of the new system of park- 
way on the lake front, extending from 
Grant Park to Jackson Park. The work 
of filling in the lake front will be pushed. 
A society was recently organized in 
Chicago for the preservation and protec- 
tion of native landscape in Illinois and 
neighboring states. The club is to be in- 
corporated under the title “Friends of Our 
Native Landscape.” 
The City Council of Providence, R. I., 
at a special session, recently held, passed 
a resolution directing the city solicitor to 
apply for legislation authorizing the city 
of Providence to hire $250,000 for exten- 
sions to the playground and park system 
of the city. 
Improvements and Additions. 
The United States Department of Agri- 
culture will aid in the beautification of 
the levee park, Muscatine, la. The plan 
of beautification will be worked out during 
the early spring. Seats and benches will 
also be placed on the little filled-in strip 
and the river site parking will undoubt- 
edly be popular. 
The Connecticut Fair Association, Hart- 
ford, Conn., has announced plans for the 
development of the Connecticut fair 
grounds at historic Charter Oak Park. 
The plans, which have been considered 
bv the directors and officers of the fair 
association are of more than local inter- 
est, as the fair has already established a 
hold upon state pride by the manner in 
which it does things. 
Funds are being raised by the Board of 
Trade of Stratford, Conn., for the pur- 
pose of beautifying Academy Hill, Para- 
dise Green and other smaller places 
around town that can be made into hand- 
some little parks. 
Work of developing and planting Tay- 
lor Park, Freeport, 111., is advancing rap- 
idly. The lakes will be completed this 
summer. 
The Park Commission of Spokane, 
Wash., through its president, A. L. White, 
has prepared extensive plans for improv- 
ing the river east of Mission avenue and 
west of Monroe street. 
The work of beautifying the grounds 
about the new postoffice building at Rock 
Island, 111., is well under way, and it will 
serve as an incentive to much needed im- 
provement in the neighborhood. 
Bonds to the amount of $25,000 have 
been issued by the Board of Park Com- 
missioners of Bloomington, 111., for the 
new animal house to be erected at Miller 
Park. 
85 
A bond issue of $5,000,000 for the pur- 
chase of new parks and playgrounds and 
the construction of additional municipal 
swimming pools and bath houses has been 
asked by Park Commissioner Dwight F. 
Davis in his annual report to the Board 
of Public Improvements of St. Louis, Mo. 
One hundred thousand dollars, exclusive 
of the cost for realty, is the appropria- 
tion made by the Rock Island railroad to 
provide Moline, 111., with a new passenger 
station and to park the ground that will 
surround the new structure. 
Choice of a location for the proposed 
amphitheater to be erected in Garfield 
Park, Chicago, has been made by the West 
Park Board. 
The Dusseldorf fountain is about to be 
taken from the Denver, Colo., Custom 
House, and will he erected in Washington 
Park, South Denver. This park is essen- 
tially a children’s park and the fountain 
should make an appropriate improvement. 
The Woman’s Club of Waverly, la., has 
asked to be allowed to equip with amuse- 
ment paraphernalia the three school 
grounds. 
The most extensive improvement con- 
templated in the Rockford, 111., park dis- 
trict is the installation of a lagoon and 
swimming pool at Sinnissippi Park, the 
money already having been appropriated. 
The commissioners, however, have not 
come to an agreement with officials of 
the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad for 
permission to cut an intake from the river 
to extend under the company’s tracks to 
the lagoon and pool. 
New Parks. 
Plans for a new city park on the north 
beach, between E and H streets and Thir- 
teenth and Seventeenth avenues, Salt Lake 
City, LTtah, are being prepared in the en- 
gineer’s office. 
Plans have been prepared by Mr. O. D. 
Arp, superintendent of parks, Sioux City, 
Iowa, and have been approved, for the pre- 
liminary landscape work in connection with 
the development of Stone Park. It is a 
beautiful property, lending itself to pictu- 
resque improvement. 
Niblack Terrace, a nine and a half acre 
tract of land, situated adjacent to the LT. 
C. T. home, in Monticello, Muskogee, 
Okla., was purchased by the city commis- 
sioners for $9,650, to be used for a city 
park. 
Paul Revere Park, supposed to be the 
smallest park in the United States, and 
located at the top of Winter Hill, Somer- 
ville, Mass., is to have its area increased 
from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. Mayor Burns, 
it is understood, will recommend in his 
funded debt a sum sufficient to purchase 
the additional number of feet. 
Mr. Albert Lee France today tendered 
to the City of St. Joseph, Mo., the square 
block of ground bounded by Twenty-sixth, 
