Parts of ‘Missing Link’ were there before

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is touting its $100 million plans to construct 5.5 miles of parkway on the city’s east side as the historic completion of the Grand Rounds loop undertaken in the 19th century.

What few remember – and no one is mentioning, as the park board pursues funding from the state legislature and elsewhere – is that the northern half of the so-called “Missing Link” was completed once before, in the early 1920s. But just a few years later, commercial interests forced part of the parkway to be moved, and then in the early 1930s succeeded in converting two boulevard parkways into industrial thoroughfares.

Minneapolis resident Connie Sullivan, whose advocacy for the current project Steve Brandt cited in Saturday’s Strib story,  researched the debacle three years ago as the current plan gained steam. A few excerpts from Sullivan’s unpublished article:

“Theodore Wirth, superintendent of parks from 1906 until his retirement in 1935, was the prime implementer of the parkway dream, and the father of the Minneapolis park system. In 1913, he visited the Chicago offices of Armour and Company to talk about their large land holdings at the northeast edge of Minneapolis: Did they plan to put stockyards there? He was relieved to find they had changed their mind, and chosen South St. Paul for stockyards. They asked Wirth if the Park Board wanted their Minneapolis land for the park system. They did …

“Wirth had to persuade the Oakland Heights Company, which owned the unbuilt high land south of the golf course, to sell a parkway easement to the Park Board. He managed that in 1913, and his engineers and construction crews built the rest of St. Anthony Parkway after World War I.

“In 1924 the St. Anthony Commercial Club (in old St. Anthony) and the Northeast Commercial Club held a big celebration of the completion of St. Anthony Parkway from the upstream river to E. Hennepin Avenue at the city limit with St. Paul. …

“A complication arose in late 1928. Fred Chute, principal of the Oakland Heights Company and holder of large tracts of land in the Minneapolis [now Mid-City] Industrial Area east of Stinson Boulevard, requested the abandonment and return to his company of the lower section of St. Anthony Parkway.  They wanted to dig gravel out of what was then called Larpenteur’s Hill, taking the hill down about 80 feet from its natural level. If they did that, they would have to leave a good portion of hill standing on either side of the higher St. Anthony Parkway so it wouldn’t collapse. In that case, they claimed, they would not have the full use of the value of their property, so they wanted the parkway gone.

“Wirth was appalled. So were a large number of residents of the Como neighborhood and other East Siders. There were letters, petitions, public hearings, protests, from 1929-32. The records show only one park commissioner, Lucian Miller, fighting to save the lower part of the parkway. The park board majority `instructed’ the superintendent to draw up plans to `divert’ St. Anthony Parkway west along the south edge of the cemetery and back to Stinson Boulevard.

“He complied, with reluctance and some anger, designing what is today Ridgway Parkway. Wirth and his engineers did their best, and the vistas from Ridgway Parkway are impressive, although not as impressive, he thought, as those from the original St. Anthony Parkway he had designed.

“Another glitch occurred: the Northwestern Terminal Company, whose structures bordered almost the whole of Stinson Boulevard south of Broadway Street, didn’t want Stinson to be a parkway, either. They would be assessed to pay for the amenity of a parkway; they preferred that Stinson Boulevard be vacated. Theodore Wirth convinced the Park Board to block that move. After all, Stinson Boulevard had been among the earliest parkways in Minneapolis, open from E. Hennepin Avenue to Broadway since 1885.

“In a sad document from 1932, when the park board was about to decide whether to let the south end of St. Anthony Parkway be undone, Theodore Wirth saw their choice as keeping something that benefited the entire city, or choosing to follow the interests of private industry and commerce. The park board opted for industry. …

“Stinson Boulevard long ago became a high-traffic truck and car route, the grand middle boulevard practically eliminated. The original 200-foot road today bears no resemblance to a parkway. Industrial Boulevard, the former St. Anthony Parkway down to E. Hennepin Avenue, still follows the curving path of the Parkway near the bottom.”