Rock Island’s Long View Park celebrates a century
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By John Willard | Monday, July 14, 2008 |
(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) This is a 1910 photo of the rustic bridge, made of tree branches, over the outlet of the park’s upper lagoon. Beneath the bridge is the waterfall that flowed into a stream.
QUAD-CITY TIMES
Long View Park, a historic Rock Island site where visitors can savor the legacy of a pioneer landscape architect and also enjoy a modern aquatics center, will celebrate its centennial this week.
The festivities begin at 5 p.m. Friday, July 18, with a picnic in the park and music by the Deutsch Polka Band. Picnickers can bring their own food or purchase items at a food stand operated by Hy-Vee Food Stores.
After the picnic, celebrants will enjoy vignettes featuring actors portraying historic figures associated with Long View, a 39-acre urban oasis that crowns the bluffs between 13th and 18th avenues and 15th and 17th streets. The hour-long series of vignettes will be capped with the serving of birthday cake and lemonade.
The highlight of the evening will be the unveiling of a pair of bronze lions that will replace the deteriorating sculptures that stood sentinel at the park’s southeast entrance on 18th Avenue for decades.
“This will be a celebration of the park’s history as we look forward to its next century,” said Linda Anderson, the president of the Friends of Long View Park.
The park, one of Rock Island’s oldest, remains a vital part of the city’s recreational offerings, said William Nelson, the director of parks and recreation.
“Long View is the grand community park of Rock Island,” he added.
The park remains popular, he said, because it has adapted to the community’s changing needs. Improvements have included the construction of a $4.2 million family aquatics center, Whitewater Junction, which replaced an aging swimming pool.
The park’s sheer beauty also draws visitors, he said. Its features include a winding drive that offers stunning vistas of the Mississippi River Valley, a glass-walled conservatory, three major shelters and the park’s floral calendar, which has welcomed travelers on 18th Avenue for more than 30 years. It features the year, month and day in letters and numerals formed with plants.
Long View is also rich in history. Once part of a 2,500-acre tract owned by Bailey Davenport, the son of city of Davenport founder George Davenport, the development of Long View marked the first time that Rock Island actively acquired land for use as a public park.
Ossian Cole Simonds, a noted Chicago landscape architect, was hired to design the park. It was dedicated amid fireworks, music and oratory on July 10, 1908.
Although many of Simonds’ original features, such as twin lagoons connected by a brook, rustic bridges, a waterfall and a band shell are gone, the Friends of Long View are working with the city to preserve the park’s remaining aesthetic and historic qualities.
In addition to donating the park’s new bronze lions, their efforts have included the restoration of an antique fountain, now serving as a planter. It was rescued when Garnsey Square fell to the Centennial Expressway in the 1960s. The Friends of Long View also hope to restore the park’s grand entrance on 17th Street, where two of the original gate posts have survived.
Contact the features desk at (563) 383-2345 or cbrown@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
If you go
What: Long View Park centennial celebration
Where: Long View Park, 17th Street and 18th Avenue, Rock Island
When: Beginning at 5 p.m. Friday at the shelter near the 18th Avenue entrance
More information: Linda Anderson, Friends of Long View, (309) 786-7917
Long View Park has long history
Long View Park was hailed as a place of rest for older people and a place of utmost pleasure for children when it was dedicated July 10, 1908.
On that day, more than 15,000 people turned out for a program that included a ladies chorus performance of “Ye Hills and Bright Vales,” with lyrics written especially for the occasion and sung to the tune of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
The park had become reality Aug. 30, 1897, when land that originally was part of “Bailey’s Pasture,” a 2,500-acre tract owned by Bailey Davenport, son of city of Davenport founder George Davenport, was transferred to the City of Rock Island.
After Bailey Davenport’s death, the land had been purchased at auction in 1891 by a group that included lumber baron Frederick Weyerhaeuser and Charles H. Deere, son of plow pioneer John Deere. They intended to donate the land to the city.
Mayor Thomas Medill suggested a park be developed after a proposal to build a water reservoir fell through. The donors of the land agreed, provided that no intoxicating beverages would be sold on the property. The new park was named Long View after Medill sought ideas from the community.
Chicago landscape architect Ossian Cole Simonds was hired to create a design for the park. Of the belief that nature should be a partner in landscape design, Simonds, an 1878 civil engineering graduate of the University of Michigan, incorporated scenic walks and drives, lagoons on two levels and lots of trees in his plan. The lower lagoon, the concrete bank of which still survives, was a popular ice skating spot during winters.
Later additions to the park included a Swiss chalet-style confectionary built in 1917 on the hill north of 18th Avenue. It serves today as the residence of the park horticulturalist. A conservatory, built in 1936 in the style of a Victorian palm house, showcases floral displays. A swimming pool, which opened in 1956, was replaced with the Whitewater Junction family aquatics center in May 2003.
— John Willard
Long View lions remains a puzzle
The two lion statues at the southeast entrance of Long View Park on 18th Avenue in Rock Island have greeted park visitors for decades, but their origin is shrouded in mystery.
Diane Oestreich, a member of the Friends of Long View Park, says one legend has it that they originally graced downtown Rock Island’s Spencer Square as a gift from lumber baron Frederick Weyerhaeuser. But old photos of those lions, while in a similar pose, show that they differ from the Long View pair, she said.
According to another story, she said, the Long View lions were moved to the park in 1931 from the garden of onetime Rock Island mayor and hotelier Ben Harper’s former home on 18th Street when it was razed to make way for telephone company offices. However, the Harper lions were made of crockery, a ceramic material, she said, while both Long View lions are hollow and formed from a soft-tin/lead alloy.
In the mid-1940s, vandals pushed the lions from their pedestals, causing major damage. The local Lions Club filled them with concrete, which added weight and caused corrosion. The city repaired and painted the lions over the years, but cracks and patches were evident upon closer inspection.
“The Long View centennial celebration will see the unveiling of new bronze lions, very similar in size and appearance to their deteriorated predecessors. Like historic park statuary, the new lions are a gift to the park from the Friends of Long View,” Oestreich said.
— John Willard
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