CHAPTER XXVI.

PARKS AND BOULEVARDS.

The redemption of a city's plague spots and unsightly and uninviting sections by the substitute of finely improved boulevards, well kept parks and public playgrounds is evidence of civic spirit that today is turning to municipal embellishment and improvement as a valuable asset in the business of making cities.

We are in the age of municipal adornment and improvement and the city that fails to locate broad and attractive boulevards, purchase and improve parks and adorn and equip plazas and playgrounds, will fail in the race for the greater city life and business. The spirit of money getting and industrial extension is today a partner of the landscape architect in his plans for civic beauty.

The condition of the public mind of today upon the park, and, naturally following, the playground proposition, is a radical departure from that of five years ago. There are many good people whose activities of life turn to the betterment of humanity, to the consideration of better sanitation, better housing, food, clothing and better mental conditions and aspirations for those who are the "hewers of wood and drawers of water" in the seemingly unequal race for life and existence. It is to this class that we must largely give credit for the marked change in public sentiment.

Executive officers of cities now vie with these good citizens in their efforts to provide municipal legislation favorable to this development in civic life.

Our own city is now thoroughly awake to this advancement in urban life and as we add miles to our boulevard system, so we shall establish bath houses, swimming pools and playgrounds for both summer and winter. The present generation should so build the park system, and there is every indication that it is doing so, that future generations may amplify the same with a higher degree of finish in the established and improved portions and extensions that may become a harmonious part of the whole.

This growing, thriving municipality will as surely require vast additions to its public recreation grounds and beautiful boulevards as it will require new streets and extensions of all its public utilities.

It is now sixteen years since park work became a factor in Kansas City municipal life, although the charter of 1889 contained a special article relating to parks. The late Judge John K. Cravens was the author of this, the first evidence of an attempt to make provision for these public necessities. A legal technicality, however, was found that, when passed upon by

STRUCTION OF ROAD.

the courts, caused the article to be declared void. In 1893 the works assumed tangible shape in the form of an exhaustive report submitted by the first board of park commissioners to the mayor, the Hon. W. S. Cowherd, then filling the executive chair. The following extracts from the letter transmitting this report indicate the careful and thoroughly businesslike work of the commissioners and landscape architect, Mr. George E. Kessler:

"While the recommendation of one improvement at a time may seem to possess the merit of conservatism, such a course certainly is open to the criticism that it does not permit, on the part of the public an intelligent judgment upon the value of such improvement. The community as a whole can hardly be expected to be familiar with the topographical and other conditions within and about the city, or with all or even a considerable portion of locality within the city, or in its immediate vicinity, that possess great natural beauty. The value of selections for public purposes, their most satisfactory distribution, and the dependence of one improvement upon another, cannot be appreciated without a general plan, and without a full discussion of the considerations that have had a voice in the preparation of such a plan.

"We have therefore thought it best to prepare a plan embodying all improvements which, in our opinion, should be undertaken in the near future.

"We realize that we ought to call attention to the following important guiding facts that we have constantly had before us.

"That we are charged with the duty of developing a plan that shall not only meet present, but future wants.

"That to undertake important work in a half-hearted manner is the poorest economy, and that it is far better to plan comprehensively and broadly and proceed with actual construction leisurely, than to attempt economy in the original plans."

This report outlined a general plan of improvement for the entire city and with only minor changes these plans have been carried out, during the twelve years of active work, by the commissioners under the guidance of the landscape architect.

A perusal of the report shows clearly an appreciation of the possibilities, in Kansas City, of development in landscape architecture and as well a remarkable prophecy as to the advantages to accrue to the city from expenditures in this direction. Extended extracts will best tell the story of this early work:

"Lying amidst singularly beautiful surroundings, possessing an irregular and diversified topography that would lend itself readily to improvement under the hand of the landscape architect, and abounding within her