Public pleasure grounds have come to be regarded as necessities, no less than evidences of the highest civilization. Viewed in this light, Minneapolis takes rank among the leading cities of the world, for her park system and driveways are already known as among the greatest for natural beauty to be found anywhere. It is only within a comparatively brief period that the cities of America began to take measures to construct public pleasure grounds for the people. Forty years ago Central Park in New York City was a wilderness of stones and brush, inhabited by an army of trespassers. It has taken those forty years to reconstruct from gully, mountain, and morass that most beautiful of American pleasure grounds, and it has also taken millions of dollars in money from the tax-payers of that great city.
Minneapolis was more fortunate. Nature had generously constructed, beautified, and embellished a park over all the lands where the City of Minneapolis now stands. When the intelligent people who came here- to create new homes for themselves got ready to inaugurate the present park system, they found the gently undulating hills, beautiful meadows, charming lakes and water-falls already created to their hands. Where is there another city in the world with as many “beauty-spots” made ready for the people by nature? A few years ago a park board was organized and the machinery put in motion for the creation of a system of public squares, and parks to be connected by wide and shady driveways. From that day to this, one spot of ground after another, one beautiful lake after another has ceased to be private property, and become the common heritage of the people. But the system is as yet by no means complete. There are still beautiful sheets of water, wooded slopes, and undulating meadows to be obtained before the people of the city will be satisfied.
The park system proper of Minneapolis commences with Central Park (now Loring Park), a body of land consisting of forty acres, within which is located a most beautiful sheet of water, kept fresh and clear by an artesian well which empties a constant stream of delicious soft water into the basin.
Minneapolis : An Art Study of the City and its Surroundings
Written by Frank J. Mead for the Minneapolis Realty Company in 1891
