Central Parkway is one of the major parkways in a citywide network envisioned in the 1907 park plan by George Kessler. (For more about Kessler, see "A Brief History.") Extending for two miles along the former route of the old Miami & Erie Canal, central Parkway was developed in conjunction with a rapid transit railway, which was to run in a tunnel created in the old canal bed. Construction of the railway began in 1920, but ceased in 1927 when funds ran out. The system was never completed because the growing popularity of the automobile greatly diminished the need or desire for mass rail transit. When it was dedicated in 1928, Central Parkway featured broad central islands with concrete walks, trees, benches, ornamental street lamps and circular ventilators for the subway below. This scheme was mush simpler than that proposed by Kessler. In the 1950s, increasing auto traffic led to widening the roadways at the expense of the medians and fixtures, with the exception of the streetlights. In 1990, the remaining medians were replanted. Between main and Sycamore Streets, an historic marker capped with a silhouette of a Conestoga Wagon party marks the confluence of two 18th-century military trails.
