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Designers of Our State Park by Jane and Dean Sheaffer Once upon a time, not so long ago or far away. Nature presented herself as a boundless resource, offering abundant provisions of limestone bluffs, rivers and valleys, canyons, woodlands and prairies. But as the 20th century appeared on the horizon, populated areas in Midwest America began to feel the constraints of city living. Most of the big parks in Chicago were built in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, and in the early 1900s, other cities throughout the state followed suit. But even while needs for civic beautification and recreation open space were being met within city limits, farsighted individuals set their sights on an even greater system of parks. This is the story of some of the people who were instrumental in creating Illinois' earliest and finest state parks and preserves, and what they intended the parks to be. The Foundation Early in the century, there was no environmental movement, but it was apparent to anyone who cared about the native landscape that Illinois had a limited number of unique natural areas and that unspoiled woodlands, rivers and prairies were growing scarce. One person in particular, landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860-1951), agitated for the preservation of such areas for the benefit of the public. Jensen, designer and director of the west side parks in Chicago and eventually many other municipal parks throughout the Midwest, was a leader in the movement that originated both the forest preserve system and state park system in Illinois. The government wheels were set in motion in 1903 when the Chicago city council approved the creation of a plan for a comprehensive metropolitan park system. Jensen and Prairie School architect Dwight Perkins labored together on it for a year on their own time. The result was the 1904 Report of the Special Park Commission that included a plan by Jensen for providing natural preserves throughout the region. In the report, Jensen drew attention to the ecological features and plant communities of each proposed site. For years he had traveled on weekends with his family to the ends of the streetcar lines to botanize in the meadows and woods and bring home native plants. More recently, he had been associating with Dr. Henry Cowles, father of the new science of ecology at the University of Chicago and proponent of protecting the Indiana dunes. The Chicago Playground Association, which Jensen and Perkins had helped organize, began sponsoring "Saturday Afternoon Walking Trips" to some of the sites proposed for preservation. Often these outings attracted 200 or more walkers including naturalists, artists and influential community leaders. The excursions became so popular that a new organization was formed to manage them. Named "The Prairie Club" by Jensen, it became an ardent supporter of the bill to create county forest preserves. Like Jensen, Perkins was a passionate conservationist. Due to his perseverance through years of political obstruction, state legislation enabling the forest preserve system passed the state legislature in 1913. The next year, in referendum voters approved formation of the Cook County Forest Preserve District, the first and by far the most extensive of today's 13 districts. The intent of the regional plan was to make Chicago a better place to live and to preserve outstanding natural resources such as native ecological communities, bluffs, rivers, prairies an woods. Consequently, the new system of preserves was unique. In the Old World, the wealthy tended to lock away remarkable natural places for their private use, and New World custom tended to follow the same dictates. That ecological features of the highest quality would be available for public pleasure was an innovative concept 90 years ago. The areas recommended for acquisition in Cook County were primarily along water courses. Within two decades, the system was up to 35,000 acres, 26,000 of them natural areas along the north branch of the Chicago River, the Des Plaines River, Calumet River, Thorn Creek and at Palos Hills. The effect of these linear preserves was to create a greenbelt around Chicago, accessible to everyone in the county. From 1916 to 1922, Dwight Perkins served as chairman of the planning committee of the
Forest Preserve. He then became honorary president of the Chicago Regional Planning Association. DuPage County, neighboring Cook county on the west, immediately followed suit in 1915. At first small tracts were purchased scattered uniformly throughout the county, without the benefit of a master plan. In 1929, the Chicago Regional Planning Association came to the aid of DuPage and helped write a plan for development. Physically, the plan was an extension of the design philosophy that served Cook County so well. The three principal water courses. Salt Creek and the East and West DuPage Rivers, all flowed north and south, forming three greenbelts parallel to the DesPlaines River like expanding rings from a stone tossed in a pool. The concept was that instead of becoming backyards and dumping places, these streams should become "the front yards and scenic Forestways of the Country." While the Great Depression halted progress on acquiring lands and the plan was laid aside, eventually by chance or by necessity much of the same land was acquired anyway. The principal author of the DuPage plan and general manager of CRPA was Robert Kingery. From southern Illinois, Kingery had worked for a time in the offices of the Olmsted Brothers, nationally respected park and landscape planners. In 1929, he was beginning to assume a broader role that would profoundly influence the direction of state parks, roadsides and public works for more than a decade. The State Park Movement Among the popular destinations of the Prairie Club were Starved Rock and the Rock River area from Dixon to Oregon, Illinois, where the Eagle's Nest artists colony, led by sculptor Lorado Taft, was in residence on a high bluff overlooking the river. In 1911, the state had purchased a portion of the present state park at Starved Rock, and for ten years, local citizens had been urging the state to take over the rare stand of native white pines near Oregon and prevent it from being logged. With passage of the Forest Preserve bill assured, Jensen's greatest concern became saving natural areas throughout the state. In April 1913, he invited a group of influential men and women from both the Chicago area and downstate to meet for the purpose of "discussing a conservation policy to protect tracts of Illinois landscapes of historic and scenic value," This new organization, called "Friends of Our Native Landscape," sought to cultivate in all citizens of Illinois greater appreciation and pleasure in the outdoors and to preserve "examples of native landscape types that are fast disappearing before the encroachments of industry—streams with their adjoining bluffs and flood plains, woodlands of all kinds, dunes and prairies with their rare and marvelous floral carpets, ravines of beauty and interest that will tie the present and future generations of Americans to the past, serve as playgrounds for people, and as sanctuaries for wild plant and animal life." Friends of the Native Landscape published its first report in 1921 titled Proposed Park Areas in the State of Illinois. The 120-page soft-cover book included extensive descriptions and photographs of White Pines Forest, Starved Rock, Apple River Canyon, sites on the Rock, Illinois, and Mississippi River valleys and in the Ozark uplifts of southern Illinois. Sections of the report were written by various members including Dr. Cowles. Jensen contributed the Forward and the final chapter, "The Preservation of Our River Courses and Their Natural Setting." "It is here," he wrote, speaking of the river bluffs, headlands, and wooded hills of Illinois, "that nature through countless ages has written poetry and romance deep into the prairie soil. It is here where we today find the intimate beauty and loveliness of our country with her hidden treasures in contrast to the free and open prairies." Jensen felt that all river courses should be preserved in their entirety. He argued that river courses, including most of the sites proposed as state parks, had little or no agricultural value and urged people to think less of the utilitarian values and more of the spiritual side. And he argued that it was of little consequence that many of the proposed areas were far from the major population centers as rail and rapid development of highways would make them accessible to all. Up to that point, all properties the state had acquired were historical sites, even Starved Rock due to its Indian history. By emphasizing natural and scenic areas, the Friends were advocating a significant change in direction for a state park system, and their publication was the most important effort in the educational process they recognized would be necessary to effect the change. In 1926, when the basic act for authorizing the state to acquire lands for park and forestry purposes was before the Legislature, the Friends published A Park and Forest Policy for Illinois. In Jensen's opinion, the sites should be kept in their native state. "The object of the park reservations," he wrote in a Friends publication, "is to preserve the scenic beauty of Illinois in its primitive form and to hold it as a heritage for generations yet unborn. There is an inherent quality of great force in primitive beauty that is invaluable to mankind." Jensen felt that the parks should be linked: "A well designed system of roads should connect all State parks and the main arteries of through highways. As these roads are dedicated more to pleasure, they should not have the straight line or the most direct way as the chief objective of their planning; rather, beauty should rule, and they should go through the most beautiful parts of the state, through both scenic areas and prosperous farming country. They should be located over existing roads, insofar as this is possible, and heavy freight carriers should be debarred from them, if feasible. The roadsides should be planted with plants indigenous to the region, in a way not to hide the adjoining country or to destroy the spirit of the open, as we find it here on the plains." The concepts put forth by Jensen (parks) and F.W. von Owen (forestry) became the foundation for the statute passed that year. The lobbying effort was both thorough and innovative. Jensen went on the radio in Chicago to talk about the state parks plan and take calls from the public. He made sure that all legislators had been contacted by the Friends. But the movement that he had helped initiate had already spread widely. Each year, the Friends of the Native Landscape had met in summer at a different "beauty spot" worthy of being preserved as a park. It became a tradition at these meetings to stage a performance of a masque entitled "The Beauty of the Wild." Often, as many as a thousand or more local people came to see the performance. It was an era in which camp settings or "Chatauquas" were the accepted setting for bringing culture to
the public. Even the University of Illinois became involved, employing the former state Chatauqua president Dr. R.E. Hieronymus as advisor to an extension program called the Better Community Movement. In the early 1920s, Hieronymus organized an Arts Extension Committee chaired by his longtime friend, sculptor Lorado Taft. The Arts Extension Committee began to hold summer outings, and touring natural "beauty spots" as well as art collections and distinctive buildings was high on their agenda. Beauty spots were defined as "places of historic and scenic interest." Strategically, as the Friends and other statewide groups were bringing pressure to bear on the legislature, Taft's committee launched a statewide competition to "discover as many beautiful places in Illinois as possible." Photographs of beauty spots were submitted to a committee consisting of Taft; J.C. Blair (University of Illinois Department of Horticulture); and landscape architect O.C. Simonds, who like Jensen, advocated native landscapes. Initially, about 60 sites were selected to rank among the 100 Beauty Spots in Illinois and included many locations that would eventually be designated as state parks: Starved Rock, Utica; Castle Rock and "Black Hawk" statue and surroundings, both at Oregon; Apple River Canyon, Warren; Pine Creek and White Pine Forest, Polo; New Salem, Petersburg; Black Hawk Tower and surroundings, Rock Island; Mattheissen's Deer Park, Utica; Fern Cliffe, Goreville; Cahokia Mounds, East St. Louis; Fort Massac, Metropolis; and New Salem. Natural and scenic city parks and drives were prominent on the list including several that had been laid out by Simonds: Pilcher Arboretum, Joliet; Lowell Park, Dixon; Indian Mounds and Homan Falls, Quincy. How successful was Friends of Our Native Landscape in protecting the areas recommended in their 1921 report? Of the twenty sites proposed, nine eventually were acquired all or in part by the state as scenic and recreational parks and three as state historic parks. Several others became part of the Shawnee National Forest. A more important question may be, "How well has the state preserved the areas 'in their primitive form as a heritage for generations unborn?'" Design and Development It was the Great Depression and the intervention of the federal government that led to the actual planning and design of Illinois' newly-acquired state parks. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) under the administration of the U.S. Army, was looking for work for unemployed men. (Before it disbanded, the CCC completed major projects in 14 Illinois state parks and memorials.) The National Park Service (NPS) was offering to help states develop plans for parks and public areas.
Suddenly, it was a time of great opportunity for young talent. David Abbott, an Olympic miler and 1930 landscape architecture graduate of the University of Illinois, was hired by the Division of Parks and thrown immediately into site design. Within months, he had completed all of the conceptual designs that were published in the December report. Through the rest of the 30s, he served as Landscape Architect and state contact for all National Park Service landscape work in Illinois. Dave's classmate at Illinois, Xavier "Brute" Meyer, an excellent draftsman and designer, was hired at the same time by the National Park Service to work in their central office in Springfield. It was the beginning of a public service career that would see Meyer produce site development plans for virtually every property owned or managed by Illinois state parks division for a period of four decades. The NPS also employed architects in Springfield in the early 30s and created jobs for landscape architects and architects on specific park sites. White Pines Forest State Park near Polo is a good example. In 1933, landscape architect Lawrence Olson of Rockford graduated from the University of Illinois and late that fall was in a tent at White Pines drawing plans while the CCC built barracks, mess halls, officers' quarters and recreation buildings for 300 men. Soon, he was joined by Richard Kapsa, draftsman in charge of architectural details, and later another architect named Burmeister. On site, this team designed and supervised construction of all roads, bridges, shelters, signs and the lodge which is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Overall design responsibility remained with the state architect and landscape architect in the Division of Parks and Memorials, Department of Public Works & Buildings, where decisions were made regarding size of facilities, style and building materials to
be used (at White Pines: rustic structures built primarily of pine logs). In 1933, Robert Kingery left his post in Chicago to become director of Public Works under Governor Henry Homer (1933-1936), and in that capacity he personally had a hand in design decisions for the next four years. Kingery's role was important because he brought continuity of direction and high standards of design to the state parks at the time they were being physically developed. He had the authority to implement as rules the recommendations of the 1932 report. Suggestions for scenic and historic parks included dignified entrances free of inappropriate signs, entrance drives planted with native trees and shrubs, and limited roads. The concern was that the automobile could be the most destructive force, after fire, on large parks. Walkways should be direct, wide enough and fitted unobtrusively into the landscape. A system of marked trails with colored "blazes" was appropriate for parks with woods or scenic attractions. "Fundamentally, the State parks should always remain truly historical or naturalistic," the 1932 report stated. Where intensity of use dictated development of mass recreation facilities, plans were to accommodate the crowds in a centralized area to preserve the native character of the remainder of the park. Buildings and other structures were to be designed to harmonize with local surroundings. Because piecemeal addition often mixes styles and materials, the advisers had recommended that a definite type of architecture be selected for all buildings to be erected in each park. "The style need not be the same for all parks, but under no condition should it vary within a single park," they warned. Federal programs also gave a tremendous boost to development of forest preserves. In Cook County, the Skokie marsh, owned by the district, was accepted as a major flood control project, and work on the Skokie Lagoons began in 1933 under direction of the National Park Service. WPA funded many other projects such as lagoons, stone walls trails and shelters—mostly labor-intensive work providing many jobs. But they also employed designers who as a rule followed the rustic and naturalistic style, utilizing mostly native plants. In Cook County, the basic policy during the 30s was forest protection and development for use. Interior roads through woodlands were eliminated and new enclosed parking lots constructed at the periphery near highways. The areas adjacent to parking lots became mass recreation centers, with picnic facilities and open space for playing fields, and footpaths or equestrian trails leading into the woods. The craftsmanship of WPA designers and laborers can still be seen in preserves in Cook, DuPage, Winnebago, Kane, and Will Counties. Reforestation efforts in Cook County, following ecological principles, refrained from introducing pines and spruce in favor of native species, especially white and bur oaks in the uplands. Although the auto was still being held in check in the 30s, everywhere it had assumed a prominence in the plans for scenic and natural parks that surely dismayed the Friends of Our Native Landscape. Although planners centralized auto access at Starved Rock, they sacrificed priceless wetlands to create an autocamp. Elsewhere, they provided large parking lots serving play fields and recreation shelters, which, if consistent with Friends of Our Native landscape philosophy, would have been more appropriate in municipal parks and preserves than in "wild areas." In the late 20s and early 30s, Jens Jensen was solicited for his advice on the acquisition of new parklands. At that time, parks generally were selected for their situational qualities, for the uniqueness of their natural and scenic qualities, as recommended by Friends. Situationally, most of them were in river valley or in the Shawnee Hills. Location relative to population centers was a secondary consideration, but always important to Springfield. Political pressure also entered the picture. Fox Ridge State Park near Charleston was developed by the NFS because the community needed a large project to keep a CCC contingent employed in their area. On the other hand, politics killed an NPS plan to convert Camp Grant at the confluence of the Rock and Kishwaukee Rivers near Rockford into a vast recreational and nature park. Kingery continued to play a role in state park planning after his term ended in 1936. He served as chairman of the Illinois State Planning Commission until it was dissolved in 1943. In that capacity, he maintained a cordial relationship with his successor at Public Works, Walter A. Rosenfield, and he instigated the 1938 report, Illinois Park, Parkway and Recreational Area Plan. A joint effort of the Commission, the Division of State Parks, CRPA, and NPS, the report recommended policies for design and development as well as specific acquisitions. Virtually a Bible, it covered state parks, parkways and memorials, county forest preserves, even roadside recreational areas and holdings of the Department of Conservation. Within a few years, federal cooperation was over and everyone was concentrating on the war effort. Kingery resumed duties with the Chicago Regional Planning Association, later to be known as Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NEIPC). Many of the architects and landscape architects joined the services or moved on to private practice. Some found other jobs in Public Works. Lawrence Olson finished at White Pines in 1936 and moved over to the Division of Highways, where he stayed until 1946. Dave Abbott continued with State Parks but concentrated more on planning and acquisitions. Brute Meyer remained as the sole designer of state parks until the early 70's. Although he designed many parks, Meyer was most proud of his work on the restoration of New Salem. For five years, he researched to accurately recreate the landscape of the prairie village where Abraham Lincoln lived. WWII proved to be the end of an era in park design. For many years, first Jensen, then Kingery and other planners had recommended that the state acquire and preserve several thousand acres along the beach at Zion, the last remnant of a unique ecosystem on the shore of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. The state finally bought it in 1943. In 1946, the state's chief of design, Joseph F. Booton, was arguing for extensive recreational development as a "state beach." While acknowledging that preservation was appropriate, Booton maintained that recreation was considered by many to be a luxury. He advocated that it was a necessity. "Time on our hands with nothing to do is not only wasteful but dangerous," he wrote in a state publication. Booton held up the example of Jones Beach in New York—miles of beaches lined with thousands of automobiles and bathers. Already Governor Dwight H. Green (1941 -1948) was pushing for the development of numerous artificial lakes scattered through-
out the state, a task he assigned to the Department of Conservation. But for a few exceptions—Matthiessen Deer Park in 1943, Feme Clyffe in 1949, Castle Rock in the early 70s, all sites recommended by the Friends in 1921—the era of historic and scenic parks was over. In 1951, the Division of State Parks would be merged into the Department of Conservation and most new park sites for the next two decades would be multi-use recreational facilities based on the artificial lakes. The new philosophy would also impact the older scenic parks, refitting them to serve increasing recreational, camping, and lodging needs at the expense of wildness. The authors wish to acknowledge the following people for their kind assistance in providing information for this article: Dan Gooch, DuPage County Forest Preserve District Bibliography Booten, Joseph F. 1946. "Looking Ahead to Completed Illinois Beach State Park." Illinois Public Works, 4, no. 1 (Spring): 13-19. Booten, Joseph F. 1945. "State Park Architecture Harmonizes With Scenery." Illinois Public Works, 3, no. 2 (Summer): 18-23. Doty, Carol. 1991. "Ecology, Community, and the Prairie Spirit." Prairie In the City: Naturalism is Chicago's Parks, 1870-1940: 8-17 Chicago: Chicago Historical Society. Grese, Robert E. 1992. Jens Jensen: Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Hieronymus, R.E. 1926. "Improving the Appearance of the Communities of Illinois." The Illinois Blue Book., Springfield. Illinois Board of State Park Advisors. Report of the System of State Parks in Illinois, December 30, 1932. Springfield. Illinois State Planning Commission, Division of State Parks, and Chicago Regional Planning Association; National Park Service cooperating. 1938. Illinois Park Parkway and Recreational Area Plan. Chicago: Illinois State Planning Commission. Jensen, Jens, et al. 1921. Proposed Park Areas In the State of Illinois: A Report With Recommendations. Chicago: The Friends of Our Native landscape. Jensen, Jens and F.W. von Oven. 1926. A Park and Forest Policy For Illinois. Chicago: The Friends of Our Native Landscape. Makowski, Ellen Huening. 1990. Scenic Parks and Landscape Values. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. Olson, Lawrence. Interviews by Dean Sheaffer, 1989-93. Trotter, John E. 1962. "The State Park System in Illinois." University of Chicago Department of Geography Research Paper No. 74. Chicago. About the Authors Jane Sheaffer is a research coordinator and former Dixon park board commissioner. Dean Sheaffer is principal of Dean Sheaffer Landscape Architects.
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