Como Park
Como Park: A Historical Tour of One of Saint Paul’s
“Beauty Spots”
Author: Sharon Shinomiya
Como Woodland Outdoor Classroom Advisor and local resident. 8-2008
Millions
of people visit Como Park every year and this has been the
case since the park was developed more than 120 years ago.
This land, set aside as a refuge from city life before the
city of Saint Paul even reached this area, has seen many changes.
A Walk
Through the Woods and Beyond – Como’s Early History
Take a
walk through the wooded area in Como Park south of Horton
Avenue and east of Hamline Avenue and you may notice traces
of Como Park’s past. Before you enter, stop and imagine
the land as it looked before European settlement and development:
an oak savanna with prairie grasses, gentle hills, low, swampy
areas and gravelly ridges; in the distance, a shallow lake
or two.
Watch
as the Mdewakanton Dakota make their way through this area
between the park and the fairgrounds from their home in the
south to harvest wild rice at lakes further north. Listen
for the squeaky wheels of the oxcarts carrying French traders
on the Red River Trail to the south.
Go back
in time even further and witness the huge bodies of water
left behind as glaciers retreated after the last Ice Age.
For a long time, this area was covered by Glacial Lake Hamline,
which extended from near the St. Paul campus of the University
of Minnesota to the northwest end of Lake Como and down south
past Hamline University and as far as Summit Avenue.
 Mammoths
and most likely, mammoth hunters, roamed here long ago. As
the glaciers melted and the glacial lakes drained, forests
moved in: the pine forests to the north and the broadleaf
forests, full of white oak and deer, to the east and south.
Ojibwe and Dakota hunted and clashed here.
Come back
to the present, and as you enter the woodland, you’ll
see two paths. One, on the diagonal from the corner of Horton
and Hamline, follows the now-removed section of Como Avenue
that met this intersection. The other penetrates straight
into the woodland canopy following the old Como-Harriet Streetcar
Line. Old rail ties from the line were still visible along
the edges of that trail – at least they were before
the installation of a new bicycle and pedestrian path.
The 110-year-old
streetcar bridge over old Beulah Lane has been rebuilt as
part of the new path. The stone streetcar station that replaced
an earlier wooden one still stands on the corner of Lexington
and Horton, fully renovated, an office and meeting spot for
community members.
Follow
old Como and look carefully to your left, into the woods.
You can see the ruins of the cascades and pool built by the
Works Progress Administration in 1936 under the direction
of W. Lamont Kaufman, Superintendent of Parks. Trees and shrubs
now hide the limestone slabs that form its outline, but its
grassy pool is clearly visible.
 Further
along Como, across from the former gravel pit that is now
McMurray Field, you’ll come to a clearing, in the middle
of which sits a stone fireplace, neglected and crumbling behind
a chain-link fence. The fireplace was built and dedicated
in 1936 as part of the Joyce Kilmer Arboretum, donated by
the Joyce Kilmer Post of the American Legion. Superintendent
Kaufman belonged to this post. The Arboretum’s plaque
with Kilmer’s famous poem Trees is long gone.
Look across
the playing fields to the railroad tracks and beyond and you
will see the structures of the old Northern Pacific Railway’s
Como Shops, now Bandana Square. Railroads and their supporting
industries employed one quarter of Saint Paul’s work
force in the 1880s. The new residential neighborhoods popping
up along Como Park’s borders in the mid-1880s offered
convenient housing that may have appealed to many of the hundreds
of employees of the Como Shops.
Further
south, just past the Como Shops, the Koppers Coke Plant operated
from 1916 to 1979. The plant produced coke, gas, ammonia,
tar and benzol and employed hundreds of workers. You may not
wish to imagine the fumes that on occasion must have wafted
over the park from this plant.
Continue
through this largest remaining untamed area of Como Park and
you’ll come to the Como Pool, an amenity donated to
the city in 1963. What you won’t see is the County Workhouse,
an anomaly that was located on the southeastern corner of
the park from 1881 to 1960. In 1881, as the city waited for
better economic times to develop Como Park, the workhouse
was erected here, “out in the woods,” far beyond
residential development. As early as 1887, the newly formed
park board protested its placement in the park and eleven
years later the city attorney ruled its placement illegal.
Its location in the park wasn’t completely without benefit:
prisoners provided free labor for projects and upkeep throughout
the park. Still, it took more than half a century to remove
it. This same area was eyed as a possible location for a permanent,
larger zoo in 1930. It is being eyed now as the site for a
new water park.
This Land
Becomes a Park
Como Park
began its life as a public park in 1873. In the 1840s, Charles
Perry, a native of the Swiss-Italian Alps, owned the land
around Lake Como and grew potatoes on it. In 1848, Perry moved
north and homesteaded land at Lake Johanna. Henry McKenty,
the “king of real estate dealers”, came to Saint
Paul in 1851. He took advantage of the boom in real estate
in the 1850s to buy and sell land in Saint Paul and around
Lake Como. Lake Como is named after the famous Lake Como in
the Italian Alps.
Though
it seems logical that Perry named the lake after his birthplace,
it is McKenty who is credited with renaming Sandy Lake as
Lake Como in 1856. (McKenty also named Lakes Johanna and Josephine
after his wife and daughter.) McKenty used his own money to
build a road that zigzagged across land he didn’t own,
from Saint Paul’s downtown, to bring people out to the
lake and his “Como Out-Lots,” a resort community
platted on the east side of the lake.
The road
was finished in 1857, the same year the red brick Adler Hotel
opened on the east shore of the lake and the same year McKenty’s
fortunes took a nosedive with the faltering economy. After
the Civil War, three hotels operated along the shores of Lake
Como and J. C. Burbank ran an omnibus to the lake three evenings
a week during the summer.
H. W.
S. Cleveland – Park as Respite From City Life
Parks
were fashionable in the 1870s, and Horace W. S. Cleveland,
a renowned landscape architect, urged Saint Paul and other
cities to set aside land for parks before land became scarce
and costs climbed too high. According to Cleveland, city leaders
should “regard it as a sacred duty to preserve this
gift [the landscape’s natural features] which the wealth
of the world could not purchase, and transmit it as a heritage
of beauty to your successors forever.”
The Minnesota
Legislature authorized a bond issue of up to $100,000 in 1872
for the city of Saint Paul to acquire land for a major public
park. After the land for Como Park was purchased in 1873,
an economic downturn caused citizens to question the wisdom
of this expenditure, but the city held on to the land.
Development
of the park, however, would be stalled for the next fourteen
years. Finally, when the economy improved and more funds became
available, in 1887 the city allocated money to develop Como
Park into a landscape park. Cleveland, who at the time served
as Minneapolis’ Landscape Architect, was hired to design
Saint Paul’s parks and parkways, including Como Park.
 Plans
made by Cleveland in the late 1880s emphasized the preservation
and development of natural features in the park. According
to him, parks were places for people to escape city life,
to stroll or boat, ice skate or ride horses, to picnic, play
and appreciate nature’s beauty. The landscape gardener,
Cleveland believed, had “no other duty than to serve
as the high priest of Nature” and he should “only
dare to touch with very reverent hands, the symbols through
which she addresses her worshippers.” Many roads and
the Hamline picnic grounds were completed during Cleveland’s
tenure.
The Park
Matures – Frederick Nussbaumer Years
John Estabrook
served as Superintendent of Parks for one year before Frederick
Nussbaumer, a gardener hired by the park in 1887, began his
thirty-year tenure in 1891. Nussbaumer had worked in London’s
Kew Gardens and in Paris. Though Nussbaumer agreed with Cleveland’s
philosophy of naturalistic parks, he also thought parks should
provide opportunities for organized, active recreation, an
idea that was popular at this time.
 Under
Nussbaumer’s leadership, the layout of the park was
completed and many recreational amenities were added. The
floral display gardens and the lily pond once known as the
Aquarium were developed. The Mannheimer Memorial was erected
in 1906 atop what was later known as “peony” hill.
A wide flight of brick and marble stairs led up to the wooden
pergola. Under its pergola stood a sparkling marble fountain
designed by famous architect Cass Gilbert. The memorial connected
the lily pond to gardens on the top of the hill.
The Nelumbium
Pond and Rockery, now known as the Frog Pond, was completed
in 1911. An outdoor Banana Walk, or Palm Avenue, featuring
tropical plants in the summer, was located at the base of
the east picnic grounds hill where Lexington Parkway is now.
The tropical plants overwintered in greenhouses in the park.
In 1915, the impressive, glass-domed Conservatory opened,
fulfilling Nussbaumer’s long-held dream for Como Park.
The Saint
Paul City Railway reached the Como neighborhoods in 1892.
Six years later the railway had permission to construct their
line through the park in exchange for building the Lexington
Parkway bridge, the footbridge over the tracks, and the lakeside
pavilion, where many band concerts were held both summer and
winter.
 A
1911 trolley guide described the “restful rural loveliness
of [Como Park’s] natural landscape, with its hills and
dales, groves and meadows, and its charming lake nestling
in the encircling arms of its treeclad hills.” Visitors
could find paths and miles of drives, boating, a Japanese
garden, fountains, lawns and flowerbeds. The trolley was an
important way for the “masses” to visit the park.
“The
great mass of people enjoy flowers. They also pay for the
parks,” Nussbaumer wrote in his article An Ideal Public
Park in 1902. He believed there should be no “keep off
the grass signs” and that parks should be available
to both the “nature-loving enthusiast and frugal workman”
and provide both facilities for recreation and “objects
of attractiveness.”
The Como
Zoo began informally in 1897 with the donation of three deer.
Thomas Frankson, real estate developer and former lieutenant
governor, donated some buffalo. Similar donations swelled
zoo inhabitants to well over 100 in 1930, and included buffalo,
deer, elk, bears, coyotes, red foxes, rabbits, goats, raccoons,
porcupines, a badger, woodchucks, monkeys, guinea pigs, opossums,
rats, alligators, pheasants, pigeons, crows, a chicken hawk
and owls. An old iron arch structure with a curved top, built
by Nussbaumer, became the first zoo cage when it was erected
in the buffalo pasture and covered with netting. Its curved
top determined the design of later cages.
 In
1904, a Japanese garden was created on the shores of Cozy
Lake, a smaller, shallower lake that was located where the
golf course is now, and was connected by a canal to Lake Como.
The garden was developed in response to a gift made by Dr.
Rudolph Schiffman, an original member of the Saint Paul Park
Board in 1887. He donated a collection of Japanese shrubs
and trees he purchased at the St. Louis World’s Fair.
Dr. Schiffman had earlier donated the Schiffman Fountain,
modeled on one in Barcelona, Spain, and installed near the
lake and pavilion.
In the
early twentieth century, a playground movement swept the country
and Como Park. Ball fields were built on the northwest corner
of the picnic grounds and tennis courts were added near the
Conservatory. A large playground area and open-air theater
north of Cozy Lake appear on Nussbaumer’s 1905 design
for the park, though it is not clear how much of it was actually
built. A map included in a 1917 trolley guide shows a running
track, playground, shelter pavilion, wading pool and swimming
pool north of Cozy Lake.
Changes
in the Park
Superintendent
of Parks Nussbaumer retired in 1922. George Nason succeeded
him in 1924 and set to work paving the parkways for the droves
of automobiles now motoring around the park. Adequate parking
for all those vehicles became a problem, as it still is now.
Nason
believed that parks were “educational and should be
kept distinctly beautiful in character.” According to
him elements of beauty included broad lawns framed by trees,
large masses of shrubs and beautiful flowers. Activities in
the park included skating, tennis, horseshoes, soccer, ball
games, pavement dances, toboggan slides, horse races and dog
races, and of course, picnicking. Some events drew crowds
of tens of thousands.
 The
Conservatory held spring flower shows, fall chrysanthemum
shows and December poinsettia shows. A perennial border bloomed
north of the Mannheimer Memorial. In 1930, a rose garden,
and iris and peony garden were added. The iris garden was
entered through an ornamental iron arch supported by Doric
columns.
The bridle
path was improved, and Como’s new golf course, the city’s
third public course, opened, one of the many courses springing
up all over this golf-crazed country. Planning began for a
new, improved, larger zoo.
 During
the 1920s, problems with maintaining lake water levels in
both Cozy and Como Lakes continued. Many years earlier, in
1895, the city dredged Lake Como to increase its depth from
five to fifteen feet to combat swampiness. Drought and leakage
caused the city to pump thousands of gallons of water into
the lakes. In 1921 new electric pumping machinery was installed.
In 1923, the city went so far as to drain the entire lake
to patch leaky areas. Finally, the city gave up and in 1925
the leaky northern portion of Lake Como was filled and dammed.
Cozy Lake dried up, the Japanese garden disappeared, and the
area became the new golf course. With the addition of the
golf course, a large portion of the park became devoted to
organized, active recreation.
From the
W. Lamont Kaufman Years to Today
W. Lamont
Kaufman became Superintendent of Parks in 1932 and served
for the next thirty-three years. The Depression years brought
another period of development to Como Park. From 1935 to 1941,
the Works Progress Administration completed many projects
in the park, especially in the zoo. Projects included Monkey
Island, the main zoo building and the bear grotto. Pony rides
were offered in the park in the 1940s and amusement rides
opened after World War II.
As early
as 1955 city officials recommended closing the zoo, but a
citizen’s volunteer committee fought to keep it open.
They succeeded, and the zoo was even able to add to its collection.
The zoo hired its first director in 1957. The primate house
opened in 1969, and after the completion and funding of a
Master Plan for Como Zoo in the mid-1970s many more new zoo
buildings were constructed. A new Japanese garden opened in
1979 and a new focus on education prompted the offering of
garden classes at the Conservatory.
Following
1981 Como Park Master Plan recommendations, many roads were
removed from the park to reduce traffic congestion and de-emphasize
the impact of the automobile in and around the park. Lexington
Parkway was rerouted and the pavilion was reconstructed using
old blueprints.
Today, Como Park continues to be a well-loved and much-visited
city and regional park. We have the foresight of our forebears
to thank for it. And that wooded area? It is in the process
of becoming the Como Woodland Outdoor Classroom, a preserved
and enhanced woodland for the enjoyment of the public and
the scientific education of area students
Source
List:
Andrew
J. Schmidt, Planning St. Paul’s Como Park: Pleasure
and Recreation for the People, Minnesota History 58/1, Spring
2002, pp. 40-58
Aaron
Isaacs and Bill Graham, The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line: A
Memory Trip Through the Twin Cities (The Donning Company Publishers,
2002)
Como Park
Master Plan, 1981
“The
City Itself a Work of Art:” A Historical Evaluation
of Como Park for the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, draft for
St. Paul Division of Parks and Recreation, August 1996, The
106 Group Ltd.
Patricia
Murphy and Gary Phelps, Swamps, Farms, Boom or Bust: Como
Neighborhood’s Colorful History, Ramsey County History,
19/1, 1983-84, pp. 13-22
The Enterprising
Salesman and the Old Road to Lake Como, Ramsey County History,
6/1, Spring 1969, pp. 14-16
Virginia
B. Kunz, A Day in the Life Henry McKenty, Minnesota History,
56/4, Winter 1998-99, pp. 235-237
William
H. Tishler and Virginia S. Luckhardt, H.W.S. Cleveland, Pioneer
Landscape Architect to the Upper Midwest, Minnesota History,
49/7, Fall 1985, pp. 281-291
Biography,
History, Roster of Joyce Kilmer Post, No. 107, American Legion,
Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1930
H.W.S.
Cleveland, Public Parks, Radial Avenues, and Boulevards. Outline
Plan of a Park System for the City of St. Paul, Comprised
in Two Addresses Delivered Before the Common Council and Chamber
of Commerce, June 24, 1872 and June 19, 1885
Fred Nussbaumer,
An Ideal Public Park, The Minnesota Horticulturist, 30/3,
March 1902
George
L. Nason, Visiting Around St. Paul Parks, extracted from St.
Paul Dispatch, July 4 – December 1, 1932
Samuel
W. Pond, The Dakota or Sioux in Minnesota As They Were in
1834 (Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, 1986)
Glimpses
Into Early Local History: How Como Park Nearly Was Lost to
St. Paul, 1916
Susan
Davis Price, Minnesota Gardens: An Illustrated History (Afton
Historical Society Press, 1995)
Warren
Upham, Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic
Significance (Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, 1920)
A 20-Year
Vision for Como Lake: The Como Lake Strategic Management Plan
Report, Como Lake Strategic Plan Committee, July 2001 (Capitol
Region Watershed District)
Como Park
Historical Resources Inventory, City of Saint Paul Division
of Parks and Recreation, August 1995
St. Paul
Daily News, St. Paul Soccer Players to Have Their Own Field,
August 16, 1925; Permanent, Larger Zoo Planned for Como Park,
June 15,1930; Fight for New Workhouse Here Dates Back to 1887,
December 7, 1930; Como Zoo Began with 2 Rabbits, Now has 163
Varied Denizens, May 11, 1930
Daily
Globe, May 12, 1901, p. 24
St. Paul
Pioneer Press, Como has New Sunken Pool, May 24, 1936; Bad
End of a Busy Life, August 11, 1869; Physician to the Stars
… of Como Zoo, July 5, 2008
St. Paul
Dispatch, Lake Johanna Pioneers, August 2, 1950
How to
See the Twin Cities, 1911, http://reflections.mndigital.org
The Twin
Cities Today, 1917, http://reflections.mndigital.org
Duke Addicks,
Interview, July 23, 2008
www.comozooconservatory.org
www.ci.arden-hills.mn.us
Walking History Tour of Como Park
Go back in time with a walk through Como Park's past. Download any version of the following walking tour, read and follow the map for a taste of how things once were. Do it alone, or bring a group. Pack a picnic and enjoy it at one of the picnic grounds along the way or stop at the lakeside pavilion for an ice cream cone and take in a free evening concert in the summer. Visit the Conservatory or Zoo, or just walk or pedal around the lake. Make a day of it, or come for a short walk.
There are several ways you can experience this. The full three-part Reading Tour takes approximately 2 hours on foot; 1 hour by bike. Don't have that much time? The tour is broken into three parts--just print out the pages you want and spend about a half-hour walking that part.
The tour follows paved paths within the park, but feel free to explore as you wish.
You can also choose to download an MP3 Audio Tour to free up your eyes, or choose a more in depth experience with the Extended Reading Tour.
Tour Map (PDF 337 k)
This accompanying color map contains all the routes with the points of interest marked to match the tour.
Reading Tour (PDF 1.5 MB)
Photos and Text, Part I, II, and II, 12 pages
- Part I (pages. 1-5)
Begins at the streetcar station, passes the lakeside pavilion and ends at the pedestrian bridge crossing Lexington.
- Part II (pages. 6-9)
Begins at the Global Harmony Labyrinth, continues around the
Ibsen Monument, and ends at the Conservatory and Carousel.
- Part III (pages. 10-12)
Begins at the Dietrich Lange Memorial (near the Conservatory parking lot) and continues through the Hamline picnic grounds and Como Woodland & Outdoor Classroom and ends at the Como Pool.
Audio Tour (40 MB)
Downloadable MP3 file, 40 minutes,
Part I, II, III
This contains all the information in the above reading tour in narration and sound effects.
Expanded Reading Tour - (PDF 1.61 MB)
Photos with more detailed text, 18 pages, Part I, II, III. For the History Buffswho want more, this is an expanded version of the above Walking Tour with more detail. The complete expanded tour takes about 1-3/4 hours.
Sources (PDF list, 38 k)
Where all this information came from.
A BIG THANKS!
We'd like to thank the following for their great efforts in putting this together.
-
Tour researched and written by Sharon Shinomiya © 2009.
- Map graphic design and project coordination by K. Darby Laing, LAINGdesign.
- Voice talent contributed by Greg Ritter (gbritter@msn.com) with help from
Essential Sessions and Recording Edge studios.
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