PARK AND CEMETERY. 
41 
Bartlett Park, an extensive parkway- 
west of the boulevard and south of 
Messenie street and the increase in 
the area of Bartlett Park to double 
its present size. 
The proposed purchase of a park 
site of 150 acres of land in Austin, Chi- 
cago, has been in abeyance for some 
time, owing to the failure to agree upon 
a price with the officials of the Roman 
Catholic church, which owns the 
land. They ask $600,000 for it, and 
the Park Commissioners offered the 
church $500,000, which is $50,000 
more than the value recently put on 
the land by the real estate board. 
At a recent conference between rep- 
resentatives of the Seattle and Ta- 
coma, Wash., commercial bodies it 
was agreed to carry a concerted fight 
to Washington on behalf of the en- 
tire Mount Rainier national park re- 
serve. The campaign will be for 
large appropriations to open up ex- 
isting roads and trails and to build 
new ones so that the entire reserve 
may be made easily accessible to the 
tourist. 
A strenuous but apparently ineffec- 
tual effort was made a short time 
since to prevent the establishment of 
a tennis court and a playground in 
Caledonia park, Pacific Grove, Calif. 
Sentiment was quite strong on the nega- 
tive side of the question. 
The Women’s Improvement club of 
Red Bluff, Tehama Co., Calif., has re- 
tained an attorney to determine if the 
Duncan Hill property can be legally 
taken over by the city as a site for a 
public park. The club has at its dis- 
posal about $1,000 which can be used in 
buying a park. The property in view 
would cost about $1,200. 
In March the Board of Estimate 
of New York City accepted a gift 
of land from Miss Flora E. Isham 
to connect Isham Park with the 
Hudson river. This assures to the 
extreme northern section of Manhat- 
tan Island one of the most attrac- 
tive public parks in the entire city. 
This gift of more than two acres, valued 
at $200,000 or more, adjoins the old 
Isham estate, which is included in 
the park as presented by Mrs. Henry 
Osborn Taylor, daughter of the late 
William B. Isham. The park, in 
the early days of New York, was 
the haunt of the Weckquas-keek In- 
dians, and the numerous relics of the 
tribe that have been dug up in recent 
years will be collected in a museum 
in the old Isham mansion, which for 
fifty years was the country home of 
William B. Isham and his family. 
Isham Hill was the scene of several 
sharp skirmishes in Revolutionary 
days when the Pennsylvania troops 
met the Hessian forces. The gar- 
dens will be used for playgrounds for 
children and part of the mansion will 
be made into a pavilion. 
Work on improvements in Water- 
way Park in Kansas City, Kas., in- 
cluding a bath house and facilities for 
boating and fishing, has begun. 
Waterway Park consists of a string 
of ponds between Washington and 
Grandview boulevards near Eleventh 
street. A boulevard, winding in and 
out among the ponds, has been con- 
structed to connect the two boule- 
vards. The lake on Eleventh street, 
between State avenue and Washing- 
ton boulevard, the largest, will be 
deepened and the bottom covered with 
gravel. The bath house and boat 
house will be located there, and the 
pond will be stocked with fish. The 
park department has $150,000 for im- 
provements. 
The establishment of a City Park 
Commission and Playground Associa- 
tion under the direct control of the 
city council is being advocated in 
Ottawa, 111. 
Park Improvements 
The park board of Milwaukee, Wis., 
has decided to spend $16,795 for mi- 
nor improvements. The whole 
amount available for this purpose is 
$28,907, but the board decided to take 
no further steps tending to improve 
the park system until the common 
council has disposed of the action 
now pending to erect a comfort sta- 
tion in Juneau park. Improvements 
in Washington park to cost $3,300 
were ordered. They will include a 
buffalo yard and a concrete bath tub 
for the elephant. 
The finishing touches to Highland 
park, Pittsburgh, Pa., according to 
plans of E. M. Bigelow, have been 
approved by the council, and con- 
demnation by the city of 33 pieces 
of property adjoining the park, which, 
together, have an assessed valuation 
of about $250,000, have been recom- 
mended. A bond issue would be 
necessary to carry out this proposed 
addition to the park. 
Director Norris, of the Department 
of Wharves, Docks and Ferries, of 
Philadelphia, Pa., in addressing the 
City Club a short time since, de- 
fended Mayor Blankenburg’s attitude 
toward the Parkway, then took this 
as a text to discuss the administra- 
tion’s plans for the improvement of 
the city. He declared that $900,000 
will be used at once for the Parkway 
work, and that he believed that it 
will be possible to devise means by 
which $1,000,000 a year can be ex- 
pended until the boulevard has been 
completed. 
Mr. W. D. Brookings is planning 
to utilize the “wash” north of the 
city of Redlands, Calif., on the road to 
Highland, for the purpose of creat- 
ing a novel park. The “wash” is the 
old bed of the Santa Ana river and 
nothing but desert plants could be 
made to grow there. The plan is to 
plant every species of cactus that can 
be secured and he believes that the 
place can be made into a park that, 
while it may not beautiful, will be 
interesting. 
The city commission of Port Ar- 
thur, Texas, has been surveying and 
investigating that part of Lake Shore 
park lying between Austin avenue 
and Mary Gates hospital, with a view 
to planting the tract with several va- 
rieties of shade trees and laying a 
shell promenade through the park 
lengthwise. The park is an exten- 
sive affair and fronts on the entire 
length of the town flanking the Sa- 
bine-Neches canal and Sabine lake. 
The commission has some money to 
spend and the improvement of Lake 
Shore park is about the best use it 
can be put to. The commission in- 
tends to extend improvements on 
this part of the park as funds are 
available. 
The City Council, of South Bend. 
Ind., has ratified contracts made by 
the park board calling for additions 
to Leeper, Howard and Studebaker 
parks. 
Estimates made by Superintendent 
Wirth of the Minneapolis, Minn., 
park system involve expenditures of 
between $160,000 and $170,000. The 
construction of the new Calhoun bath 
house, now under way, and the erec- 
tion of the Logan park field house, 
will be among the big features. A 
new waiting station at Forty-second 
street, Lake Harriet, for which bids 
have been secured, will be put through 
this year. Playground improvements 
the coming season will include the 
placing' of apparatus in Jackson 
square; the placing of apparatus on 
Longfellow Field and grading and 
fencing there; the creation of a play- 
ground for young children at Elliot 
park, and the making of a bathing 
pool at North Commons. Bathing fa- 
cilities will be increased in the parks 
this year not only through the erec- 
tion of the new Calhoun bath house, 
but also through the new bath house 
erected at Glenwood lake and Lake 
