When Lake Harriet Wasn’t Good Enough
Here’s a 1907 map of planned park improvements around Lake Harriet including boat landing, bathing beach, bathhouses, rose garden, picnic grove, tree, shrub and flower garden, trolley station, and paths. Theodore Wirth thought Harriet’s shoreline was a little too monotonous and dreamed of adding a peninsula on the lake near the Beard Plaisance on the west shore. Wirth also presented plans for a possible channel from Lake Calhoun to Lake Harriet that included locks to make it navigable.
