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Building the Parks
In many ways, the decision to construct parks along the Huron River was the
easiest step for the city of Ann Arbor. Once that decision was made, the
city still had to acquire the land, shape the landscape so it was usable by
the public, and fit the new parks into a coherent system.
Amazingly, most of this process took place in less than a decade between
1902 and 1911.
While the city may have wanted to build parks along the river, many of the
owners of the land along the river had other thoughts. Several landowners
made money by renting their land to local industries; others saw the
opportunity to turn a tidy profit by selling to the city at inflated
prices, sometimes four and five times what the city thought the land should
be. Except for some land donated by the Michigan Central Railroad, the city
failed to come to agreements with most of the landowners. Thus, the city
turned to condemning the property, a procedure by which the city claimed
the land for public use and paid the owner what the city thought was fair
value. Click here to read the city council records of the land acquisition process against Mr. Henning.
After the land was acquired, a significant amount of work was required if
the public was to make use of them. While landscape architect O. C. Simonds
recommended the parks be left natural by retaining the native vegetation
and by not mowing, a significant amount of work was needed to build roads
which were considered essential to the public's enjoyment. Click here to read Simonds's plans for the parks.
Finally, the Ann Arbor Park Commission felt that a general system of
connecting the city's parks was essential. Two street plans were proposed;
both consisted of boulevards, wide streets with parks on both sides and a
tree-lined median. The first proposed to connect Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti
along the Huron River; the second wound through Ann Arbor and connected the
parks within city limits with the new riverside parks. Click here to read details of these plans from 1905: Parks Commission Report and an article from the Ann Arbor Daily News on the new Park Board.
The result of this work, by laborers, the city government, and landscape architects, is the riverside park system that today consists of Fuller, Broadway, Riverside, Island, and Cedar Bend parks
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funded in part by the Michigan Humanities
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