![]() The terrain of the park makes it one of the most interesting neighborhood parks in the city-and provides a great sledding hill. When looking at the steep grades in the park today, it’s hard to imagine the park when those slopes were steeper. Construction was also begun on a shelter building that was completed in 1960, resulting in “a new modern playground” where the “formerly hilly terrain made its value as a playground somewhat limited,” according to the 1960 annual report. In 1959, Audubon got new playground equipment, a wading pool and ball fields financed by city bonds amounting to $107,000 and property assessments for the same amount. In 1958 additional filling and grading were done at Audubon to provide more gradual grades in the park, including a resurfacing of topsoil obtained from the construction site of the new Shingle Creek playground in north Minneapolis. Finally in 19 the board’s annual reports again cited plans for developing Audubon and in 1957 improvements in the park were begun by filling low areas with 20,000 cubic yards of fill excavated from the construction site of nearby Northeast Junior High School. It did not happen.įor the next twenty years, park board annual reports made no mention of any plans for Audubon Park. He also admitted that the only prospect for executing the plan he presented was with Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds. He included Audubon in a list of “Some Well-patronized but Insufficiently-equipped Playgrounds,” noting especially the lack of proper shelter buildings and sanitary facilities. In the last annual report he wrote before he retired, Theodore Wirth again presented a plan for the improvement of Audubon Park in 1935. Wirth also noted in his report of that year that the park had lost 75 percent of its oak trees to an oak borer infestation. In 1927 Wirth again proposed cooperation with Thomas Lowry School to expand park facilities, noting that the neighborhood badly needed a playground and there was space for a “standard-sized” playground between the park and school. Audubon was included among the parks that were provided with a skating rink in 1918, some playground apparatus was provided to the park in 1921, and a playground instructor was assigned to the park in 1926. The plan was abandoned after neighborhood protests over the assessments on local property, during war time, that would have been needed to pay for it. In 1918, the park board also considered enlarging the park southward to 28 th Avenue NE between Pierce and Buchanan, with the purchase of several adjoining lots. It was the flattest section of one of the city’s hilliest parks. In 1914, the park board closed Buchanan Street between the park and Thomas Lowry School as part of park superintendent Theodore Wirth’s plans, presented in 1915 and again in 1918 to create a playground from the school extending into the park. In addition to the enlargement of the park, the park board drained a “small, shallow, stagnant pool” in the park, according to the 1912 annual report. The park was expanded slightly in 1912 with the addition of four-tenths of an acre at a cost of just over $1,000. The first five acres for Audubon Park were purchased in 1910 for $5,400 and Pierce Street through the park was closed. Name: The park was named in honor of John James Audubon, the American naturalist and ornithologist, at the time it was purchased in 1910. Let your dog run off-leash at one of our eight dog parks.Ĭelebrate 140+ years of Minneapolis Park history through community stories
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