Last updated: June 11, 2024
Place
Spokane Parks
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
Location:
Spokane, WA
Significance:
Olmsted Designed Park
MANAGED BY:
In 1907, Aubrey L. White, President of Spokane’s newly founded Park Board, discovered John Charles Olmsted was making trips to the Pacific Northwest to oversee other projects, and convinced the landscape architect to make the occasional stopover in Spokane. On trips to Spokane, John Charles explored bluffs, river gorges and forests, issuing an ambitious report one year later calling for four large parks, five smaller parks, eleven playfields, numerous parkways, and improvements to the ten already existing parks.
White often accompanied John Charles and his associate James Frederick Dawson on outings, going so far as to pay an extra $50 out of his own pocket for as much verbal advice as was possible. In the end, the Spokane Park report from Olmsted Brothers cost the city only $1,000. In the plan, John Charles outlined that every home be within easy walking distance from a neighborhood park, believing "city life ... has a decidedly depressing effect on the general health and stamina".
Source: "Park System of Spokane," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted Online
White often accompanied John Charles and his associate James Frederick Dawson on outings, going so far as to pay an extra $50 out of his own pocket for as much verbal advice as was possible. In the end, the Spokane Park report from Olmsted Brothers cost the city only $1,000. In the plan, John Charles outlined that every home be within easy walking distance from a neighborhood park, believing "city life ... has a decidedly depressing effect on the general health and stamina".
Source: "Park System of Spokane," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted Online