sailor.mnsun.com
St. Louis Park
(SUBMITTED PHOTOS)
What remains of Graeser Park is largely overgrown or buried under decades of dirt.
Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019 • Page 11
Graeser Park had a fountain, grill and many stone picnic tables in its heyday. Visitors to any of the Lilac
Way parks are encouraged to submit stories of their experiences along with any photos they have.
Stories about Highway 100 roadside parks sought
website. Through stories,
the team hopes to build a
network of advocates to
keep the park restoration
on the forefront of the
community’s priorities.
Hanover resident Dawn
Spraungel came forward
at the Feb. 19 gather-
ing as the granddaughter
of stonemason George
Walter Paschke, a WPA
worker who helped build
the Graeser Park beehive.
She said she frequented the
park with her family while
growing up in Brooklyn
Center, and represents the
fi fth generation of mason
contractors in her family.
“We just want to be in-
volved,” Spraungel said.
Written memories of
any of the Lilac Way area,
including parks in Golden
Valley, St. Louis Park and
Robbinsdale, can be sent
by mail to 3401 Zarthan
Ave. S., St. Louis Park, MN
55416; by email to karen@
restorelilacway.com; or on-
line at restorelilacway.com/
stories.
Stories should be con-
cise, with a time reference
and photos if possible.
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‘An archaeological dig’
Graeser Park remains
under the ownership of
MnDOT. Until ownership
is transferred to the City
of Robbinsdale, no ma-
jor restoration work can
be done. The restoration
team is antsy to complete
the transfer so the park
doesn’t degrade any fur-
ther.
Robbinsdale
has
$190,000 reserved in its
CUPCAKE SHOPPE
LLC
W
. A
capital improvement plan
for improvements to the
park, and city offi cials
have initiated conversa-
tions with MnDOT offi -
cials over the title transfer.
There is no word yet on if
and when the transfer will
be complete.
Originally, the park fea-
tured three fi replaces, 18
picnic tables, a rustic road-
side sign, a rock garden
with two 3-foot ponds, a
fountain and waterfall,
benches and steps. All of
the features used Minne-
sota limestone and were
shaped with a hammer and
chisel.
Painstaking efforts to
recover buried stone has
been led by the local Lions
Club and the Robbinsdale
Diggers Garden Club.
“If you can see a stone
path in Graeser Park to-
day, it is because a Rob-
binsdale Lion has uncov-
ered it,” said Laukkonen.
She added the uncover-
ing of nearly 80-year-old,
hand-built pathways has
become something of an
archeological dig for the
restoration team.
Laukkonen added that
as parks became decrepit
and underutilized over
time, their stone tables,
benches, and other fea-
tures were transported
to the MnDOT building
on Highway 55. Much of
that leftover stone came
under the city of Robbin-
sdale’s ownership recently,
and Laukkonen said she is
not at liberty to divulge the
details.
“I’m not allowed to
share, but they do have
some stuff,” she hinted.
As the restoration team
waits for MnDOT, they
have begun organizing a
collection of stories of
those who remember the
parks in their heyday. The
memories will be compiled
on the Restore Lilac Way
A planned artery
Minnesotans in the 1930s
had been highly skeptical
of the need for the 66-mile
Belt Line highway system
encircling the Twin Cities.
“When people were
building the road, they
thought it was farmland
and no one would be go-
ing out there,” Laukkonen
said.
Money had been se-
cured by Graeser, who was
deeply committed to the
project as the state’s high-
way developer. The road
system, which recalled the
autobahns of Graeser’s
roots, was created to push
pass-through
motorists
away from already bustling
Twin Cities roads out into
more rural, open spaces.
The parks along the way
were “designed to both
serve the traveling public
and to soften the view of
the new highway from sur-
rounding suburban areas,”
said MnDOT’s fi le on the
park.
The Lilac Way parks got
their name from the thou-
sands of bushes of lilacs
planted along the route.
Flowered
landscaping
was typically avoided near
roads, but this project was
cleared to model itself after
the annual cherry blossom
bloom in Washington D.C.
The idea to make the high-
way a must-see seasonal
spectacle was initially sug-
gested by the Minneapolis
Journal. Laukkonen said
planners at the time liked
the idea because “cherry
blossoms last a week, but
lilacs last a month.”
According to the St.
Louis Park Historical
Society, initial traffi c on
Highway 100 was so light
there was virtually no pro-
test when Golden Valley
city offi cials routinely shut
down a stretch of roadway
for the Lilac Festival Pa-
rade in the 1940s.
Laukkonen laughed at
what Graeser would think
of his “visionary” two-way
highway system today,
which has been largely
trumped by the construc-
tion of Interstate High-
ways 94, 694 and 494.
Whole suburbs bubbled
out of the cities to once-
barren fi elds, and the belt
line road, a concept antici-
pating that explosion, was
itself lost to the booming
popularity of the area.
Still, its design guided the
formation of the communi-
ties west of the Twin Cities.
The road and parks remain
one of the Roadside Devel-
opment Division’s “largest,
most well-publicized, and
most visible, single proj-
ects” that employed 1,500
daily workers at the peak
of construction in 1937,
according to the MnDOT
report.
An artifact from what the
Minnesota Department
of Transportation called
“one of the largest federal
relief projects in the state”
remains blanketed in snow
and a hefty covering of
dirt and overgrowth at the
intersection of Highway
100 and West Broadway in
Robbinsdale.
The restoration team,
called the Graeser Park
Angels, is asking for memo-
ries of the nearly-forgotten
roadside parks to keep the
spirit and momentum of
the cleanup project going.
Graeser Park, née Rob-
binsdale Rock Garden
Roadside Parking Area, is
the largest and most intact
park of the seven “Lilac
Way” parks constructed as
destination rest areas when
Highway 100 was built. The
brainchild of famed Min-
nesota roads engineer and
Robbinsdale resident Carl
F. Graeser and landscape
designer Arthur R. Nich-
ols, the parks were created
by the hands of workers in
the Depression-era Works
Progress Administration.
Today, little of the parks’
former glory is visible.
Only two parks remain in
their original location. The
extinction is largely due to
the changing needs of the
roads that the parks were
built to complement.
Graeser Park is the last
in the country to house a
beehive-shaped grill in its
original location, accord-
ing to the National Parks
Service. There is a beehive
in Lilac Park in St. Louis
Park, but Lilac Park is ac-
tually a new park modeled
after the old park. A 2009
restoration project moved
the original beehive to the
new location a few blocks
south, as well as fi xed its
disintegrating masonry.
Making a new park cost
the city of St. Louis Park
$250,000. Restoring Grae-
ser will likely cost more: the
park is much larger and has
more stonework to restore.
“We’re all trying to raise
awareness of Graeser
Park in hopes that it does
get restored,” Lilac Park
restoration leader Karen
Laukkonen told an audi-
ence gathered Feb. 19 in
the Faith-Lilac Way church
basement. “The good news
is we’ve already done it be-
fore.”
[email protected]
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