9 
devoted the energy and wisdom of a 
highly efficient and wise manhood, 
Quincy, Illinois, will realize her loss 
more and more as time moves along. 
Quincy owes to Mr. Parker a great 
debt of gratitude, not only for the 
practical work he contributed in such 
large measure to her progress and 
betterment, but for the splendid ex- 
ample he set for both the present and 
future generations to emulate. But, 
as the Quincy Daily Herald expresses 
it: “Any tribute to his memory at 
this time could but faintly shadow 
forth the incalculable service he has 
given for years, the unselfish en- 
thusiasm with which he had devoted 
the best years of his life to beautify- 
ing and building up his beloved home 
city, and the tireless insistence with 
which he has developed the parks and 
boulevards from, unsightly bluffs and 
mazes of tangled underbrush into a 
complete landscape system which has 
made the name of Quincy famous 
throughout the land.” 
Mr. Parker had been seriously over- 
taxing his physical powers of late, 
for a man of his years, but after a 
strenuous week he went down on Sat- 
urday, February 24, to the State Sav- 
ings Loan and Trust Company’s of- 
fices, of which he was president, when 
his exhaustion was noticeable. He 
was ordered to bed on Sunday by his 
physician; a few days’ suffering from 
double pneumonia followed, and early on 
Friday morning, March 1, a relapse set 
in and his magnificent spirit departed 
at 7:45 a. m. Mr. Parker was born 
in Hartford, Conn., on February 18, 
1842. In 1863 he came to Quincy, 
111., and soon became interested in 
its leading activities, which he may be 
said to have largely influenced until 
the end. He was a charter member 
of the former American Park and 
Outdoor Art Association, which has 
finally developed into the American 
Civic Association, and with which he 
has had official relations. He was 
also a member of the American Fed- 
eration of Arts, Washington; the Illi- 
nois State Art Commission; the Illi- 
nois Lincoln Memorial Association: 
and besides many other similar con- 
nections he was a consulting mem- 
ber of the National Business League 
of America. Quite recently his force- 
ful correspondence with congressional 
representatives at Washington, on the 
subject of the Lincoln Memorial and 
Niagara Falls, has attracted attention. 
In 1869 he married Miss Helen D. 
Bushnell, who died in 1885, and in 
1888 he again married, his bride Jjeing 
Miss Elizabeth G. Bull, who survives 
him. He was a man of fine taste and 
broad culture, polite, courteous and 
liberal, and altogether a gentleman. 
PARK NEWS. a 
Cambridge, Mass., has already 
spent $1,600,000 on its 165 acres of 
public parks, and it is said that $200,- 
00Q more will complete the plans of 
the park commission. “There has 
been expended on the river front 
since the park commission was es- 
tablished $1,089,000; on Rindge field, 
$50,769; Cambridge field, $97,000; 
Broadway park, $11,635, and these to- 
gether with other construction figures 
bring the amount up to $1,600,000. 
“We have 165 acres of parks at a 
valuation, according to the assessors, 
of $5,507,141,” says Superintendent 
John F. Donnelly. 
Attention has been drawn to the 
propriety of the preservation of the 
natural beauty of the Potomac river 
and the necessity of stopping the de- 
struction of its banks in the neigh- 
borhood of Washington, by the 
quarrying and other detrimental op- 
erations. Architect Gilbert has pro- 
posed a fine scheme of land acquisi- 
tion both above and below the city, 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
and to transform into public parks 
spaces now privately owned and of 
historical interest. Under this proposi- 
tion the water approaches to the Na- 
tional Capital would be surpassingly 
beautiful. As the Washington “Star” 
says : “Mr. Gilbert’s idea is well 
worthy of consideration by those who 
want to see Washington become in 
truth the most attractive city in the 
world.” 
Olympia, Wash., has a beautiful 
wild, natural, park of 256 acres in its 
Priest Point Park. Mrs. George 
Filley, president of the Civic Im- 
provement Club of that City, informs 
us that it is heavily timbered and 
lies about a mile from the city limits, 
and there are about half -a dozen 
acres cleared for drives, paths and 
picnic grounds. Last year a play 
ground apparatus was installed, which 
has been pronounced by a play 
ground authority to be the most 
unique set of homemade apparatus to 
be seen anywhere in the country. The 
park commissioners are striving to 
keep the grounds in as natural a 
state as possible. The Oregon grape, 
red and black huckleberry and other 
shrubs indigenous to the coast have 
been carefully preserved, while the 
tall and stately sword ferns deck the 
hills the year round; the dainty 
maiden hair and some twenty or 
more other varieties completely hide 
the black soil in the shady dells. The 
ladies of the Civic Improvement Club 
have furnished such vines as ivy, Vir- 
ginia creeper and clematis to cover 
the big stumps and some of the old 
trees. The Club has also built a 
women’s bath house on the beach. 
The park has a long shore line on 
Puget Sound. The president says also 
that realizing that the working funds 
of the park commissioners are very 
limited, only half a mill, the ladies 
desire to help as much as possible 
in the good work. 
Denver, Colo., is rejoicing in the 
belief that the beginning of the year 
1912 sees almost the last objection 
to her great Civic Center swept 
away, and the city on the threshold 
of a successful campaign for civic 
beauty. The supreme court of Colo- 
rado recently decided that the city 
has every legal right to condemn and 
seize the ground needed for the im- 
provement, and the additional right 
to use the city’s credit to raise the 
money to perfect the plan. In a few 
months more the site condemned will 
be paid for, bonds to the amount of 
$2,700,000 will be issued, and with the 
money thus obtained the old build- 
ings will be razed, streets, parks and 
buildings will be provided for, and 
the work of beautifying the city will 
be begun in earnest. Denver’s whole 
scheme of parks and play grounds, 
connected by wide and beautiful 
boulevards, running to all parts of 
the city, revolves about this civic 
center. With it, the parks and drives 
are links connecting all the widely 
separated units with the civic center, 
the heart and soul of the whole plan. 
The cost of the entire Civic Center 
scheme is estimated as follows: Civic 
Center site proper, $1,814,539.41; 
opening park, 32nd and York, $52,- 
253.50; parkways, boulevards, etc., 
$314,283.99; play grounds, $200,975; 
park areas and triangles, $141,411.20. 
Total, $2,523,463.10. 
Historic Jackson Mound Park, 
Memphis, Tenn., located on the east 
bank of the Mississippi river at the 
point on which Hernando De Soto 
is supposed to have stood when he 
first looked upon the Father of 
Waters, passed into the ownership of 
