St. Paul’s park system marks 175 years with gathering, a book, fundraisers

Frederick Melo, Pioneer Press
·9 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Cows once crossed paths in downtown St. Paul’s Rice Park, where it was so common for ladies from neighboring houses to hang their laundry that an editor of the Minnesota Pioneer introduced legislation against drying undergarments there. Territorial Sen. Joseph R. Brown’s “Bill to Suppress Immorality” was signed into law, but it would take years, if not decades, for the park to slough off its bric-a-brac reputation as a backyard commons and gain some modern panache.

Taken aback by Rice Park’s lack of tree rodents, the sheriff of Memphis, Tenn. — who had visited in 1872 — took pity on St. Paul’s seemingly deprived residents and sent over a pair of squirrels the following year, according to retired professor Lisa Heinrich of St. Paul. The squirrels apparently had staying power, as would the more celebrated institutions and architecture that followed them.

The Landmark Center, then a federal courthouse, would open in 1902. The St. Paul Hotel would open in 1910. Construction of the George Latimer Central Library wrapped in 1917. The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts first threw open its doors to theater-goers in 1985.

184 parks

Fast forward 175 years from the early days of Rice Park in 1849, and the capital city’s 184 parks and 5,000 acres of parkland now comprise one of the most celebrated municipal park systems in the nation, squirrels be darned.

St. Paul routinely ranks among the top three park systems in the Trust for Public Land’s annual “ParkScore” index of the country’s 100 most populous cities, which compares municipalities based on park access, acreage, investment, amenities and equity.

From their origin days onward, the parks have benefited from private contributions, including land, money and volunteer labor, as well as the vendors that enliven them and the establishments that ring them.

“One of the things I love about the early park histories is they always show that either the land or early amenities were donated by private individuals, which often spurred government development of park spaces,” said Michael-jon Pease, executive director of the St. Paul Parks Conservancy, a nonprofit effort to support the park system.

Rice Park gathering

From noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 16, the St. Paul Parks Conservancy, St. Paul Parks and Recreation and other parks boosters will gather in Rice Park to share birthday cake and celebrate the 175th anniversary of St. Paul’s parks.

The celebration also marks “Parks Giving Day,” a parks fundraiser, where fans can text “516Parks” to 41444 or visit the online campaign at tinyurl.com/StpParksGiving2024. Como Friends will give out bur oak saplings, 12 to 18 inches in height, for party attendees to plant at home or at their business to help support the urban tree canopy.

The celebration is free and open to the public, and one of several birthday-themed events organized around the 175th anniversary. The conservancy this year plans to publish a book in partnership with the Ramsey County Historical Society focused on the history of 18 city parks, complete with coloring pages.

From 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, the parks conservancy will host a fundraiser for downtown Pedro Park at the Camp Bar, with a silent auction, DJ, a showing of park designs and an opportunity to get your name added to the park’s donor plaque. The city has allocated $5 million to Pedro Park construction and the conservancy is hoping to raise $1.5 million more.

From 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on June 26, a Wednesday, the conservancy will host a volunteer recognition event and parks fundraiser at Como Regional Park, featuring a performance by Circus Juventas, dance music and food. More information is online at saintpaulparksconservancy.org.

Projects moving forward with revenue from 1% sales tax

This year marks an unusual one for the park system in that St. Paul voters last November approved a new 1% sales tax to fund nearly $1 billion in road and parks improvements in the next 20 years. The sales tax took effect April 1. Parks and Recreation’s facility portfolio is valued around $600 million, but parks officials estimate fully catching up on long-deferred maintenance would probably cost close to $100 million. The sales tax is expected to provide the park system with some $31.4 million this year alone.

The projects expected to be funded this year, most of them this summer, include:

• Making headway on deferred maintenance, such as replacing roofs and doors at recreation centers across the city. Projects this summer include new artificial turf at the Oxford/Jimmy Lee Rec Center on Lexington Parkway, with work planned to begin the week of May 20. Also planned this summer: work on the Linwood and Hayden Heights play areas, as well as the crumbling stairs and exterior sidewall at the Hamline Park Building, a 1930s-era former community rec center at Snelling and Lafond avenues that now houses Mosaic on a Stick. Designs are also moving forward for field, court and playground improvements at the Merriam Park and Groveland Park rec centers, with construction expected next year. Designs are likely to get underway this year for parks improvements in South St. Anthony Park and at the Baker Park fields. ($10.4 million)

• Installing new geothermal heating unit at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, beginning with the primates exhibit. ($7 million)

• Improving downtown parks: the new and improved Pedro Park, with construction to begin after Memorial Day, and Osborn Plaza (formerly EcoLab Plaza), with renovation to begin in 2025, among other deferred maintenance projects downtown. ($3.2 million)

• The conversion of some tennis courts to pickleball courts, and other improvements to tennis and basketball courts. Pickleball will be coming to Webster and Orchard parks this summer, with the goal of eventually hosting dedicated pickleball courts within each political ward. Dunning Park’s Bucky Olson tennis courts are planned for reconstruction this fall. ($1.4 million)

• Asphalt replacement on parking lots, trails and sidewalks. ($1.54 million)

• Improving water features throughout the city. ($1 million)

• Advancing design of the long-planned River Learning Center by the Watergate Marina, East Side Community Center, downtown River Balcony, a North End athletic complex and parks improvements at the Heights development, previously the site of the Hillcrest Country Club and golf course. The request for proposals for a River Learning Center design has been issued, with selection likely within the month. (More than $400,000)

Here’s a quick look at the origins and unusual attributes of three of St. Paul’s oldest and most celebrated parks:

Phalen Regional Park

Spanning nearly 500 acres, Phalen Regional Park is best known for its centerpiece attraction, the 200-acre Lake Phalen, which takes its name from an unlikely inspiration — a widely despised landowner. Edward Phalen, a former soldier discharged from Fort Snelling in the 1830s while still in his 20s, was born in Derry, Ireland, and is regarded as one of the earliest settlers of St. Paul, having built his home along a creek that flowed between his namesake lake and the Mississippi River.

He also was a suspected murder — the city’s first — having been accused of killing a sergeant and land-claim partner, John Hays, whose badly beaten body turned up near Carver’s Cave in 1839 following a three-week disappearance. Phalen was eventually acquitted, but then charged with perjury, or lying under oath. He fled toward California, but was killed on the way by traveling companions who later claimed self-defense. In historical documents, Phalen’s name is often spelled Phelan, or even Felyn. Phalen Park was established by the city’s park commissioners in 1899, and the three-mile walking path around the lake was added in the decades that followed.

Rice Park

In 1849, fur trader and land speculator Henry Mower Rice and business partner John Irvine platted “public squares” in the land that would come to be known as downtown Rice Park and nearby Irvine Park. For a time, Rice Park would be a popular place for women from the homes that surrounded it to hang laundry. The city added trees, diagonal walkways, a wooden fence and later an iron fence to the otherwise unadorned Rice Park, which officially opened to the public in 1871. The park today remains a premier downtown attraction, ringed by the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, the George Latimer Central Library, the St. Paul Hotel and the Landmark Center, as well as statues of the author F. Scott Fitzgerald and several “Peanuts” characters based on the work of St. Paul cartoonist Charles Schulz. Following his land donation, Rice would go on to become a U.S. senator when Minnesota achieved statehood in 1858.

Harriet Island Regional Park

Harriet Island Regional Park takes its name from Harriet Bishop, who traveled from Vermont in 1847 to become St. Paul’s first schoolteacher. The land was once owned by Dr. Justus Ohage, a German-born Civil War veteran who gained prominence as a gall bladder surgeon and St. Paul’s first municipal public health officer. Ohage, a crusader for public vaccination and trash disposal, bought the island and then donated it to the city in 1900 on the condition that it be used as a park, according to Historic St. Paul. It became a popular bathing location and in its early days even hosted a zoo.

By the 1920s, sewage had scared away swimmers, and the park had fallen into such neglect that Ohage threatened to take back the island. Good and bad years followed. Clarence “Cap” Wigington, the nation’s first Black municipal architect, designed the stone event pavilion constructed in 1941. The island no longer technically exists — the Mississippi River channel was filled in 1950. Further efforts to revive Harriet Island for public recreation reached new heights in the 1990s as the city put more energy into riverfront development, and the park’s on-again, off-again experience as a concert venue is suddenly back on. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gwen Stefani and other big-name acts plan to pay their respects this summer when the inaugural Minnesota Yacht Club music festival lands on the park grounds July 19-20.

Related Articles