Cincinnati dates the beginning of its park system to 1817 when the city accepted the donation of land downtown that is now Piatt Park. Nineteenth-century park developments included creation of Eden Park in 1859 for the purpose of building a new reservoir, reclamation of a cemetery for Washington Park in 1860, donation of land for Hopkins park on Mount Auburn in 1866, and establishment of the large suburban tract of Burnet Woods in 1872. However, it was not until 1906 that the city created a permanent park commission and appropriated funds for a comprehensive park plan.
The foundation of Cincinnati's park system is the 1907 plan for "A Park System for the City of Cincinnati" by landscape architect George Kessler (1862-1923) of Kansas City. Born and educated in Germany, Kessler moved to New York in 1882. Through a referral from Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., Kessler was soon hired by a railroad company in Merriam, Kansas. His popular design for a pleasure park as a destination for the railroad attracted other commissions, including Roland Park in Baltimore and Euclid Heights in Cleveland. Kessler's first major project was a park and boulevard for Kansas City, completed in 1893. After planning the layout of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Kessler was very much in demand, particularly throughout the Midwest.
Kessler's new plan for Cincinnati pointed out the need to relieve congestion of crowded conditions and traffic in the city and the importance of securing land before it was developed. It promoted the use of hillsides to provide distant views and overlooks and to create desirable residential neighborhoods. Kessler also recommended parkways and boulevards connecting the parks with each other and the residential districts downtown.
By the early 1920's, most of the parks recommended in the 1907 plan had been established through an aggressive campaign of acquisitions. During the years 1907 through 1925, 70 parks, playgrounds, and squares had been acquired, some with the help of major donations. While recommending additional acquisitions, the City Planning Commission's 1925 plan recognized that "Every endeavor should be made to provide adequate roads and to erect the needed shelters and other buildings for general use, as to make the parks fully effective."
Most of the park improvements identified in the 1925 city plan were accomplished during the years between 1929 and 1943. During the Great Depression, Cincinnati's parks benefited tremendously from federal relief programs which were established to put the masses of unemployed Americans to work. The fact that park projects were already planned gave the City of Cincinnati an advantage in applying for federal assistance.
As the "New Deal" came to an end with the advent of World War II, Cincinnati's parks were left with a permanent legacy of attractive amenities. Of the 135 structures existing in Cincinnati parks today, nearly half were produced during the period from 1929 to 1943. During the war, park development slowed, but post-war prosperity and the "baby boom" spurred the growth of parks during the 1950s and 1960s. By the 1980s, the park system had reached maturity and efforts shifted to maintenance in the face of dwindling resources.
In the 1990s, a renewed commitment to conserving and developing our park legacy led to a new planning effort, "Planting the Future-The Cincinnati Parks and Greenways Plan," approved by City Council in December 1992. As you travel through the city's green spaces with this site, you will see ample evidence of the Park Board's ongoing efforts to preserve the best of the past.
