294 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
U&I 
!Sf 
'Sgjyf^ 
PARK NEWS. 
*i 
»K:U\ P 
The matter of public buildings in the 
parks is meeting with obstructions in 
other places than Chicago. It has been 
found by the legal department of Bush- 
nell 111 , that a public library which the 
city contemplated in the near future can- 
not be erected in either of its parks. The 
park land was given to the city to be 
used exclusively for park purposes. 
The Park Commissioners of Brockton, 
Mass., have asked for an appropriation 
of $27,000 for park purposes, divided as 
follows: Park development, $15,000; 
maintenance, $7,000; purchase of land, 
$5,000. 
The Chamber of Commerce of San 
Jose, Cal., proposes to create six parking 
spaces in the center of Market street, 
twenty feet wide, and of a length de- 
pendent upon the distance between inter- 
secting streets. It will make a beautiful 
driveway five blocks long, well lighted 
and improved. 
The annual budget of the Park De- 
partment of Salt Lake City, Utah, rec- 
ommends the expenditure of $94,720 for 
park improvements in 1913. Of this 
amount $33,400 is asked for improvements 
and labor in Liberty Park. 
A “Jim Crow” public park and play- 
ground bill has been introduced in the 
Missouri legislature. It would confer 
upon school boards the power to con- 
demn lands for park and playground pur- 
poses for the exclusive use of whites or 
blacks, and would apply to St. Louis as 
well as every other city and town in Mis- 
souri. 
Some patriotic women of Texas have 
inaugurated a movement for the purchase, 
by either the United States government 
or that of the state of Texas, of the his- 
toric battlefield of Palo Alto, which is 
situated on the American side of the Rio 
Grande, near Brownsville. It was upon 
this tract of land that the first battle of 
the war between the United States and 
Mexico was fought nearly seventy years 
ago, and upon the same ground was fired 
the last gun of the civil war. 
At a special election in Kansas City, 
held January 7, the city was authorized 
to issue bonds for $2,950,000, the money to 
be used for improvements protecting the 
city against floods and disease, to provide 
traffic ways and viaducts, to develop 
parks and boulevards, and to build 
municipal hospitals and workhouses. One- 
fourth of the money will be spent to 
• protect the city from floods. The vote 
was light, but the bonds carried by a big 
majority. 
On the question of establishing a prece- 
dent for the issuing of bonds for the pur- 
chase of land for park purposes by the 
city of Fort Wayne, Ind., an interesting 
piece of information was discovered by 
Prof. Louis E. Dorn, president of the 
East Side and Maumee River Civic Im- 
provement Association. This' was the 
record that on January 26, 1866, the city 
issued bonds to the amount of $35,500 for 
the purchase of real estate, which with 
other real estate, purchased later, now 
comprises Lawton Park. 
The Park Board of Atlanta, Ga., has 
asked the City Council for $244,492.40 with 
which to operate during 1913. There is a 
concerted effort being made to induce the 
Council to be liberal toward the park 
system. The report of the general man- 
ager shows a total of twenty-three parks 
with a property valuation of $1,402,967.14. 
The Park Board spent $61,055.24 in 1912. 
The report called attention to the need 
of maintaining the forestry department to 
take care of the city trees, and urged the 
establishment of a larger nursery. The 
work of Miss Mary Barnwell, playground 
director, was highly commended, and a 
plea was made for more small neighbor- 
hood parks. 
The St. Paul, Minn., Real Estate Ex- 
change has passed resolutions in favor of 
the proposed Stickney parkway, which is 
designed to extend for nine miles along 
the edge of the bluffs on the east , side of 
the river from Fort Snelling to the In- 
dian mounds. The cost of acquiring the 
property is estimated at $3,000,000, to meet 
which a bond issue has been proposed. 
The St. Paul Park Board will ask the 
legislature to authorize the city to issue 
bonds for $500,000 for various improve- 
ments. 
The Park Commissioners of Ogden, 
Utah, have requested an appropriation of 
$14,750 for park improvements this year. 
The commissioners are also asking for 
funds with which to establish a play- 
ground in the southwest part of the city, 
the one already in operation being too far 
away from that section to be of particular 
service. 
A boulevard system is being urged for 
Little Rock, Ark. 
The Public Welfare Committee of the 
Supervisors, San Francisco, Cal., recently 
listened to a tale of woe at a hearing in 
the matter of the proposed tax on bill- 
boards when J. Charles Green, the bill- 
board man, submitted a statement show- 
ing that the annual income in his business 
was only 3 per cent on his capital in- 
vested. It so astonished the gathering 
that the}'' had to take time to consider the 
new evidence, and the subject was post- 
poned for a month. 
A movement was well started in Dixon, 
111., to make a park district to embrace 
all of Dixon township, but when submit- 
ted to a vote the proposition was de- 
feated, 749 to 283. 
A resolution was recently passed by the 
West Park Board of Chicago to rename 
the seven small parks and playgrounds 
on the West Side. Instead of being rec- 
ognized as Park No. 1, etc., they will in 
future be known as Bernard A. Eckhart, 
George W. Stanford, Dvorak, Franklin, 
Pulaski, Harrison and Sheridan parks-. 
The City Council of Paris, France, on 
January 4 decided, by a vote of 67 to 8, to 
acquire from the government the fortifica- 
tions and adjacent military zone, which 
it is purposed to transform into parks and 
recreation grounds. The price, to be paid 
by the city to the French government for 
the fortifications and the military zone 
will be $20,000,000 in annual installments. 
The cost of razing the fortifications and 
laying out new roads and gardens is es- 
timated at $24,000,000, and about $2,500,000 
will be spent in the erection of a railing 
around the city. 
The City Council of Columbus, O., has 
been called upon to pass ordinances to 
aid in the development of a city park sys- 
tem by the establishment of two more city 
parks. 
The park system of Moline, 111., is un- 
dergoing comparatively rapid improve- 
ments. It now comprises some 139 acres, 
and the appropriation of $14,000 made 
for park work in 1912 has been exhausted. 
Moline was practically without city parks 
until 1900, a small piece of land in front 
of the city hall being the only municipal 
park for many years. Now it has six 
tracts of park land, so situated that peo- 
ple of all districts have access to recrea- 
tion centers. An appropriation of $14,000 
is expected for this year’s work. 
Considerable progress was made last 
year in the improvement of the many 
parks of Washington, D. C., under the 
care of Col. Cosby, of the Corps of En- 
gineers. Potomac Park has been under 
development and is being made more ac- 
cessible by the opening of roads at the 
foot of streets west of Seventeenth street, 
A boulevard, sixty feet wide, is gradually 
being constructed around the water side, 
which will finally be about four miles long. 
The major part of the present work of 
development of Washington’s parks con- 
sists in the construction of connecting 
roads and boulevards to improve their ac- 
cessibility. 
In November last Toledo, O., voted in 
favor of a bond issue of $750,000 for 
parks and boulevards. This bond issue 
