Parasols, Water Slides, and Dragons: Towards a Hydro-Social Understanding of St. Paul’s Phalen Park
Katharine Baldwin
Submitted under the supervision of Patrick Nunnally to the University Honors Program at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude in Inter-College Program: Social and Ecological Perspectives on Sustainability.
December 18, 2018
Parasols, Water Slides, and Dragons: Towards a Hydro-Social Understanding of St. Paul’s Phalen Park
Abstract
This archival study traces Phalen Park’s development from a romanticized, country-side escape from the city of St. Paul to a community park with a Chinese garden and dragon boat festivals in a racially diverse neighborhood. By contextualizing Phalen within studies on urban parks, Phalen emerges as a biophysical space with water quality and quantity concerns and as a social space where people interact, recreate, and are socially controlled. These concepts of
Phalen as a biophysical and a social space minimally address the contestation and power relations that led Phalen Park to be what it is today. Political ecology and the concept of the hydro-social provide frameworks for addressing these power relations and point towards two conclusions. First, further investigations of park history should explicitly discuss contestation in the development of the park, perhaps focusing on the rise of neighborhood organizations in the
1970s and their correlation with changing neighborhood demographics. Second, questions should be raised regarding park management and community engagement, such as how the park is currently managed and how a sense of stewardship is built among the new populations surrounding the park.
Introduction
Urban parks have been a focal point of United States cities since the 1800s. The parks’ use has changed over time according to the needs of citizens, and city planners today continue to ask how urban parks can best contribute to the urban fabric. Park management of the past has attempted to balance biophysical systems, such as hydrology and ecosystem function, with social space, where people gather and where values can be promoted. This study of Phalen, a regional park in a demographically diverse urban neighborhood, demonstrates opportunities and
2 challenges in understanding urban parks as biophysical or as social spaces and offers a hydro- social approach to reimagine Phalen Park.
This project relies on archival research, and sources are primarily drawn from the
Minnesota Historical Society and the University of Minnesota Borchert Map Library.
Indispensable resources include photos, newspapers, maps, and archives of the Phalen Area
Community Council, Metro Council, and St. Paul Board of Park Commissioners. The conclusions of this study indicate the limitations of archival research; I frame questions for future studies, which draw on the historical research I have compiled, but cannot be answered without new methods of inquiry, such as personal interviews.
This study opens with a brief history of Phalen Park, describes biophysical investigations of parks by scholars, and shares Phalen’s biophysical history. The paper then moves towards a framing a parks as social spaces, describing scholarly articles and positioning Phalen’s social history. Finally the social and biophysical investigations are united to raise questions about management and community engagement at Phalen in the past and today.
Phalen Park
Phalen Regional Park is located approximately five miles north of downtown St. Paul,
Minnesota and encircles Phalen Lake (Figure 1). Phalen Lake is in a chain of lakes that lies in an ancient bed of the pre-glacial Mississippi River (Brick 2008). The name Phalen derives from the name of the creek exiting the south end of the lake, along which suspected murderer Edward
Phalen held a land claim in the 1840s (Upham 1920).
The land on which Phalen Park sits has been used by humans for centuries and reflects changes in landscape and human populations. Indigenous peoples undoubtedly visited the lake and its surroundings. By the late 1800s, St. Paul had become a city, and the lakeshore served as a
3 summer resort. At the turn of the century, the land around the lake was obtained and managed by the St. Paul Board of Park Commissioners. Men and women in their finest outfits would visit to stroll along the winding paths and relax in canoes. Drinking water had first been piped from
Lake Phalen to St. Paul in 1857, and it continued to be obtained from the lake until 1913, when concerns about swimming and water quality led the Water Department to abandon the source.
During the next five decades, the lake faced repetitive challenges; the water level dropped precariously low, a sewer pipe through the park risked reopening the leak in the lake, and chemical pollutants caused algae blooms. Today, the neighborhoods around Lake Phalen are home to a culturally and racially diverse population and the park hosts annual dragon boat races, a Chinese garden, and activities of the East Side Arts Council.
The changes the park experienced are easily described as logical and straightforward actions, but each change was contested and a fight for meaning. Situating Phalen Park within research on urban parks brings forth two lines of study, biophysical space and social space, which describe many of the changes that occur at Phalen. These aspects cannot attend to contestation within the park independently, but political ecology offers a framework to study how biophysical and social research can be united to study the contestation and power that has formed Phalen today.
Parks as Biophysical Spaces
As biophysical spaces, parks are systems of landscape, hydrology, and ecology. Initial park designs focused on biophysical systems; landscapes contrasted with the grime and gridded streets of cities, and parks had pastoral feels, winding paths, and exotic plants. Some parks, including Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace and Back Bay Fens in Boston, addressed hydrological
4 and ecosystem challenges, such as flooding. Parks in these early days were described as the
“lungs of the city” and places of beauty and health (Eisenman 2013).
The needs of city residents had spurred the design of early parks, but wants of residents changed. Park users had been kept off the pastoral fields by fenced paths, and only walking was permitted. By the 1930s, ball players and picnickers had replaced the fences and grasslands.
Active recreation on leveled, fertilized, mowed fields become commonplace (Eisenman 2013). In the 1990s, park management moved towards what Cranz and Boland (2004) refer to as
“sustainable parks.” Cranz and Boland argue that today’s parks are ecologically sustainable places that are self-sufficient in terms of resources and maintenance, solve larger urban problems, and create new standards for aesthetics and landscape management. When possible, water is treated on site, there is minimal need for mowing or fertilizing, native plants are used, social community is built, and the landscape is permitted to change over time. In the description of park evolution, biophysical understandings are central.
Comparing Eisenman (2013) and Cranz and Boland (2004)’s studies of landscape manipulation in parks to Phalen Park’s history, much of Phalen can be understood as a similarly biophysical system. One significant difference is that biophysical studies of parks generally focus on terrestrial spaces, forcing water into the backdrop. This is true even in Schmidt (2002)’s study of Como Park, located several miles west of Phalen. In Phalen, however, water is center in the development of the park. The following paragraphs describe the biophysical aspects of
Phalen’s development.
Phalen first served St. Paul as a drinking water source. Phalen was close enough to the city for easy water transport, far enough away to avoid urban pollution, and higher than the city, so gravity could transport the water. Additionally the supply was nearly endless due to Phalen’s position in the chain of lakes. The private St. Paul Water Company piped Phalen water from
5 1857 to 1882, but, as the city grew, water from Lake Phalen became inadequate. Pressure was low and distribution was limited to low areas on the north side of the Mississippi River. Houses on the bluffs and on the south side of the river relied on private wells or purchased water from water carts. The city purchased the private company in 1882 and supplemented the Phalen water with water from Vadnais Lake (Thompson 1945).
The cleanliness of drinking water from Phalen came under scrutiny in 1903. Phalen Lake had recently become the center of a city park, and the lake was a growing destination for swimming. The St. Paul Water Department expressed concern about swimming polluting the water and suggested that only boating be permitted in the lake (“Water Board Lays Claim…”
1903). The Park Board was unwilling to make this compromise, and their statements portrayed the Water Department as greedy; the Park Board argued that the Water Department wanted its
$15,000 in annual revenue from Phalen water and that “the Water department does not want to give [Phalen] up without a show of fight, but its loss would by no means hamper the board’s supply of water” (“Water Board Lays Claim…” 1903; “Takes Views of Phalen Park Baths”
1903). The two organizations reached an agreement where the water intake was separated from the main lake with an arm and a dam (Board of Park Commissioners 1904:18).
Two years later, water management led to another dispute between the Water Department and the Park Board. Drainage from the surrounding park and land was polluting the water, and
Dr. J. Ohage, Director of Public Health, threatened to close Phalen to the public unless the Water
Department’s rules were observed. Although such threats were not popular with the Park Board or public, the threat protected residents from water-born illness (“Water Must Flow Uphill…”
1906). Due to continued increases in public use of Phalen Park, in 1912, St. Paul Mayor Herbert
P. Keller asked city engineer Oscar Claussen to close and seal the pipe that supplied water from
Lake Phalen to the city (Koran 1990). Phalen’s days as a drinking water source were over.
6 Another water issue arose in the early 1950s, when Lake Phalen began losing water
(Koran 1990). Photos from the 1950s and 1960s show sand exposed beyond the diving platforms and the channel around Round Island dry (Figures 2 and 3; Langland 1960; Editorial
Department 1958). The lake was unable to be enjoyed as it had been previously, and the low water level was framed as a problem. Groundwater was pumped into the lake, bentonite, a volcanic ash that expands in water, was bored into the bottom of the lake, and the dam in Keller
Lake, upstream of Phalen, was opened at the start of swim season to mitigate spring water loss
(Koran 1990; Langland 1960; Quick 2000).
These fixes did not stop the water loss. In 1960, a dike was built across the south end of the lake to locate the source of the leak (Koran 1990; [Phalen Dike] 1966). The southern portion of the lake dried almost completely, and 60% of the leak in the northern portion had been stopped (Figure 4; Koran 1990). Although the dike was left in place for nearly a decade, leaving half the lake empty, county engineer Deane Anklan refused to give up ([Phalen Dike] 1966). The dike was rebuilt, a storm sewer was diverted to supply water to Phalen Lake, more bentonite was added, and state officials urged further evaluation of the lake bottom (Koran 1990; Patterson
1970).
The lake may have been leaking because the clay bottom of the lake had been partially removed during dredging in the 1920s. Without a clay bottom, water could drain into the 100’ thick Jordan sandstone and escape to the Mississippi River. Furthermore, the seal on the 1882 drinking water pipe was found to be porous, and it was hypothesized that water was escaping through the pipe as well. The reason the leak worsened in the 1950s was thought to be because of bulldozer work on the beach. With the causes known, action was taken and water loss stopped
(Patterson 1970; Koran 1990).
7 The leaking lake had only just been solved when a sewer project through Phalen Park was proposed. Residents worried that the disturbance would reopen the leak in the lake, but the cities of White Bear Lake and Maplewood were exceeding their wastewater capacities and needed a sewer line to the Metro Sewer Board’s treatment plant at Pig’s Eye, east of downtown
St. Paul (Boxmeyer 1974; “Pulling Phalen’s Plug” 1973). During the sewer installation, Phalen
Park would also undergo redevelopment. Despite concerns, the project went ahead with Joseph
Strauss’, Chairman of the Metropolitan Sewer Board, guarantee that the Sewer Board would add impermeable soil fill if needed and fix problems as they arose (Vento and Strauss 1974).
Also in 1973, residents became aware of water quality issues. William Ginther, a Park
Department chemist, found that Lake Phalen was suffering from eutrophication; excessive nutrient input, especially from storm sewers and inadequate septic systems, was causing abundant algae growth. The algae consumed oxygen in the water that other aquatic organisms needed to survive. Within 10 to 15 years, Ginther warned, Lake Phalen could be dead (Karlson
1973; Koran 1990). Newspapers picked up his message - “Lake Phalen is Dying,” “Phalen’s Life
Watched,” “Save Lake Phalen” - and published concerns from residents about no longer being able to see the bottom of the lake from the diving platform, smells, weeds, gelatin-like algae floating on the surface, and garbage floating on the lake after rain (Anderson 1974; “How Bad is
Lake Phalen’s Pollution” 1973). The storm sewers leading into Phalen, which had partially solved the leaking problem were linked to bad water quality (“Pulling Phalen’s Plug” 1973).
As Phalen was the only city lake that could support game fish and swimming, the lake was a valuable resource (Koran 1990). Park Superintendent Bob Piram promised, “‘whatever it takes,’ will be done to see that Phalen doesn’t become a dead lake” (“How Bad is Lake Phalen’s
Pollution” 1973). The Phalen Area Community Council created a group to contact city officials and express concern, call for an environmental review, and host community meetings regarding
8 Phalen Park, and local residents were urged to collect leaves from their lawns and gutters to prevent them from entering the lake (Boxmeyer 1974).
Concern about water quality quieted through the end of the century, but by 2000, concern about the lakeshore led to city action. The lakeshore was in a highly degraded state due to heavy erosion from human disturbance and storm water inflows. Together, the Ramsey-Washington
Metro Watershed District, City of St. Paul, and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources collaborated to plant native species and led local students and community volunteers in restoration (“Lake Phalen shoreland restoration” 2013).
This biophysical history of Phalen shows the centrality of water issues to understandings of the park. Eisenman (2013) and Cranz and Boland (2004) pointed to important dimensions of how parkscapes were made, but other scholars provide an understanding of social space in parks that can also be extended to Phalen.
Parks as Social Spaces
In contrast to a biophysical approach, a social approach highlights the ways urban spaces are managed to inculcate particular ideologies and be used by different populations. Taylor
(1999), for example, studies social control as a motivation for the creation of Central Park. To promote early parks, landscape architects presented health-giving and character-molding arguments to cities; parks would improve civility, socialize the working class to middle class norms and values, offer public education, foster better attitudes towards work, and create more efficient workers. Although parks did implement these forms of social control, working class norms pushed back and eventually relaxed strict park rules. Members of the working class used the space for games and parties that middle class members either never did or did in their backyards. These recreational activities were originally prohibited in parks, but the city had stake
9 in supporting the working class. Providing working class access to parks, both in mixed income and low income settings, decreased housing density and therefore the spread of disease, increased health benefits and productivity due to active recreation, and continued to provide opportunities for social control (Taylor 1999).
Wolch et al. (2014) also address parks in low-income neighborhoods, but cites cases in which city greening led to gentrification. To avoid gentrification, Wolch et al. describe the “Just
Green Enough” strategy in New York, which develops small and scattered greenspaces focusing on the community’s wants. The approach can also be accompanied by rent protection for local businesses and requirements for local ownership and employment. Placing parks within the urban fabric aids understandings of who uses and benefits from the space (Wolch et al. 2014).
Another environmental justice issue facing urban parks is how to manage space for social and cultural diversity. Gobster (2002) examined outdoor recreation patterns and preferences of racially and ethnically diverse park users in Chicago by surveying 898 park users.
Approximately 200 surveys were collected from each major demographic: Black, Asian, Latinx, and White. Gobster found that users had a core set of interests, preferences, and concerns, but also wants and needs unique to each group. Minority park users came in large, family-oriented groups, and ethnic groups gathered in separate areas of the park. Facilities within parks were unequally distributed in areas where whites dominated. Racial groups also had individual needs;
African-Americans played more baseball and had more picnics than other groups, Latinos preferred site arrangements that promoted high levels of social interactions with and among groups of users, and whites were more than twice as likely than other users to mention feeling unsafe (Gobster 2002).
Low et al. (2005) adds to Gobster’s (2002) argument by arguing that managing parks for diversity should follow a model of “social sustainability.” Social sustainability relies on the
10 maintenance and preservation of social relations and meanings through place preservation, cultural ecology (who uses the site and where), and cultural diversity. Similar to Taylor (1999),
Low et al. (2005) argues that parks have the opportunity to empower communities, expand citizenship, and involve people in governance and maintenance.
At Phalen, the social dimension has also been historically prominent. St. Paul’s first discussion of parks as social spaces was in the city’s rationale for parks. In the beginning, St.
Paul did not plan for parks. Early city plats showed no plans for public space and the only parks were small areas of land donated to the city. Learning from east coast cities that were already suffering from congestion and high prices that made purchasing land for parks costly, Horace W.
S. Cleveland, an architect who had worked in Brooklyn with Frederick Law Olmsted, came to St.
Paul and advocated setting aside parkland before it was too late. In 1873, the City of St. Paul accepted Cleveland’s recommendation, purchased Como Park, and later acquired other parks, including Phalen Park by 1900 and the Mississippi River Boulevard between 1900 and 1910
(Schmidt 2002; Eisenman 2013; Board of Park Commissioners 1900).
St. Paul envisioned its parks as places of passive recreation that served as refuges from the hustle and bustle of city life. This passive recreation, as Taylor (1999) describes, could be used to socialize working class members to middle and upper class norms, foster better attitudes towards work, and create more efficient workers. To differ from the city atmosphere, parks had pastoral landscapes, winding paths, and exotic plant displays. Como Park, St. Paul’s first purchased park, offered boating, walking, picnicking, ice skating, unstructured play, and horseback riding. Horses and buggies travelled on paths through wooded groves, and pedestrians, with hoop skirts, wide hats, and parasols, strolled beside an artificial pond with rare tropical lilies and along the Banana Walk, a path lined with banana trees. Como Park was a
11 popular destination for city residents, and St. Paul looked to expand its park network with Phalen
(Schmidt 2002).
As early as the 1870s, St. Paulites and tourists visited Phalen Lake. Photos show groups sailing, rowing, and camping along the wooded shorelines (Figure 5; “Group of people sailing and camping…” 1890; “Sailboat and people in rowboat…” 1890). Tourist resorts were built along the shores, and people from Milwaukee, Chicago, and Sioux City were drawn to Lake
Phalen by railroad tourist guides. In the winters, ice was cut from the surface of the frozen lake and sold to customers as far as the east coast (“Annual Ice Cut” 1898).
In the 1890s, St. Paul began envisioning Phalen Park. The park was to be similar to
Como, but the chain of lakes substituted for the extravagance of art and floral displays (Board of
Park 1895: 20). Phalen would be, according to the Board of Park Commissioners, “a dream of beauty for the lovers of aquatic recreation,” “a very popular public resort,” “magical”, “a royal necklace of aquatic gems,” and “a fairy scene” (Figure 6; Board of Park Commissioners, Annual
Reports for 1895, 1901, and 1905). Electric lights would illuminate the entire chain of lakes, and
“a flock of sheep with a shepherd and shepherd dog would serve instead of mowers to keep the grass trimmed and add a congenial element of rural life to the scene” (Board of Park
Commissioners 1904: 20).
Despite the high hopes for Phalen Park, St. Paul had trouble obtaining the necessary land and money. Through eight years of condemnation revocations and renewals, then a legal battle with withholding landowners, the Park Board was finally able to begin developing the western shore of Phalen Lake in 1900 (Board of Park Commissioners, Annual Reports for 1898, 1899, and 1900).
During the first decade of the 1900s, the Board of Park Commissioners made a series of improvements to prepare the park for public use. A dredge was brought from Como Park to
12 Phalen in 1902 to clear the mud shallows along the edges of the lake, grade the lakeshore, and uplift Round Island (Board of Park Commissioners 1901). Dredging increased boat access and provided a flat surface for paths along the lakeshore. Bridges were built onto the newly raised
Round Island, rowboats and canoes were brought from Como to Phalen and stored on floating racks, a steam-powered launch carried passengers on pleasure cruises through the Phalen Chain of Lakes, and the Board of Park Commissioners built a large pavilion (Figure 7; Board of Park
Commissioners 1901; Board of Park Commissioners 1903; Quick 2000). According to a Walking
Tour of Lake Phalen, from 1904-1910 a mini railroad carried passengers from the streetcar station to an amusement park on the island with band concerts, a rollercoaster, a carousel, a talent show, boat rides, fireworks, Fairy Floss cotton candy, and Barnet’s root beer (Quick 2000).
These improvements exceeded Phalen’s budget, and the Park Board suggested that, “All the funds which can possibly be spared from other necessary purposes should be devoted to the improvement of Phalen Park… to provide for the proper accommodation, comfort, and recreation of the multitude of visitors” (Board of Park Commissioners 1903: 17).
The street railway was another factor enabling Phalen’s success. Public transportation via street railway began in St. Paul in the late 1800s. The new transit option provided the opportunity for the Park Board to create parks outside the city, since the trolleys “almost abolished distance as an element of social or business convenience” (Board of Park Commissioners 1895: 6). The switch in 1891 from horse-drawn cars to electric trolleys eased transportation further; horse- drawn cars had been slow and tedious over the hilly terrain. The trolleys had supported the creation of and access to Como Park, and were to support Phalen as well (Diers and Isaacs
2007).
The Twin Cities Rapid Transit company extended a trolley line to Phalen Park in 1903, after delays due to lack of electricity in the city (Diers and Isaacs 2007; “Delayed by Lack of
13 Power” 1904). With the new public access, attendance surpassed expectations, and crowds on
Sundays and holidays nearly exceeded those at Como Park (Board of Park Commissioners
1905). The transit company was asked by the Board of Park Commissioners to support the park by providing financial aid for creation of amusement and recreation apparatus and advertising
Phalen Park as a top place of interest in the Twin Cities (Board of Park Commissioners 1905).
During the 1910s, the Park Board incorporated attractions of public interest at Phalen
Park. A golf course was created, even though it interfered with the main artery of travel and playing was prohibited on Sundays and holidays (Board of Park Commissioners 1913). Baseball diamonds and tennis courts were added, and as public demand for swimming increased, the Park
Board built a bath house with 5,200 bather capacity (Board of Park Commissioners 1913; Saint
Paul Department of Parks 1919). A beach was built and included 30-foot waterslides, diving towers, and a designated swim area (Figure 8; Gibson 1915). Benches along shore brought more people to the water (Gibson 1915). In the summer of 1917, 90,000 people visited Phalen Park.
Bathing suits could be rented for 15 cents, boat docks held 1,000 privately owned canoes, and the golf course saw 47,000 users (Saint Paul Department of Parks 1919).
The 1920s brought toboggan slides, a new band stand, paved boulevards, new canoe racks, and new tennis courts, baseball diamonds, and playing fields. People ice skated and slid in the winter, and continued to swim, picnic, and attend band concerts in the summer (Figure 9;
Saint Paul Department of Parks 1930; “Toboggan Slide” 1922; St. Paul Daily 1923; Gibson
1925).
Improvements to the park slowed with the Great Depression, but visitation continued. A modern bath house was built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Association (Koran 1990).
Young trees were planted and watered with a horse-drawn wagon (Quick 2000; Koran 1990).
14 In the 40s and 50s, people continued to visit Phalen Park. The beach was full on many summer days, and the street car provided transportation into the park until 1954, at which point service was converted to bus (Diers and Isaacs 2007; “Phalen Beach” 1946). Homes in the area had been sparse until these decades, but as the neighborhoods filled in, more and more visitors came from walking distance (Figure 10; “A-12-075” 1945; “wo-5m-43” 1953). Photos from the
40s and 50s show African-Americans on the beach and Marvin Roger Anderson, who grew up in
Rondo, told MPR News that Lake Phalen was “one of the few places in the city where African
Americans felt welcome to swim” (Minnesota Historical Society 1942; Yuen 2014).
With more people in the area, and with the increasingly mobile population, Phalen was visited day and night. The Phalen Area Community Council and city newspapers expressed concern about the park being a “‘Haven’ for Youths,” where young people would drink, use drugs, and race cars (“Park ‘Haven’ for Youths” 1974; “Park Patrols Sought” 1974). A 1965 study showed that juvenile delinquency was higher than the national average in the Phalen Park neighborhood (Torstenson and Nordlie 1965). The disorderly conduct in parks affected the plans for the 1970s park redesign that came with the White Bear Lake and Maplewood sewer line.
Many residents liked the Minneapolis’ bike-only parks, but others thought not having car access would limit visitation by the young, elderly, and disabled and would make police patrols difficult
([Elimination of roads] 1974; [Roads in Phalen] 1974).
In 1975, Phalen was incorporated into the newly established regional park system, which provided the park with planning and financial resources. The regional park system was established by the Metro Council to acquire and finance major parks and open spaces within the metropolitan area (Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission 1987). Under the Metro
Council definition, a regional park had an “area of natural or ornamental quality for nature- oriented outdoor recreation such as picnicking, boating, fishing, swimming, skiing, hiking, and
15 camping” and served 3-5 communities (“First Regional Parks” 1975). Designation as a regional park provided planning and funding at the metro level, but left operational expertise at county and municipal levels (Metropolitan Parks and Open Space Commission 1987). For Phalen, this designation meant expertise on managing open space and receiving regional, state, and federal park funds during the park’s expensive redesign (see page 7). By 1984, the Metro Council had prioritized the regional parks, and Phalen dropped to the bottom of the list.
During the 1980s, despite the recent park redesign, Phalen park was falling out of use.
Swedes, Germans, Poles, and Italians were moving out of the neighborhood, and minorities, such as African Americans and Asians were moving in. The Minority Issues Advisory Committee of the Metro Council completed a study of minorities in parks and found that minority groups used parks differently from the white majority population; people of color used the parks more for team activities, preferred parks with a variety of uses, and were deterred from visiting due to transportation, personal safety, and park overload. Phalen Park neighborhoods were becoming more diverse at this time, and park preferences could have caused the decline in visitation at
Phalen Park (Metro Council Minority Issues Advisory Committee 1989).
At the same time, new ways were being found to utilize the space. Local residents created the East Side Arts Council to revitalize eastern St. Paul and reclaim Phalen Park by holding activities and events to improve social and economic conditions (“What We Do,” East Side Arts
Council n.d.). In 1986, the annual St. Paul Winter Carnival Ice Castle drew people to Phalen
Lake (Gilbertson n.d.). Several years later, in 1994, a year-long centennial celebration of Lake
Phalen was hosted by the East Side Arts Council that discussed Native American Presence and offered music, dancing, and animal tracking activities (“Year-Long Centennial Celebration”
1994). Activities and events held at Phalen continued its existence as a utilized urban park.
16 A social analysis of Phalen raises the questions of who has used Phalen, how, and what has it meant over the years. Given the number of social questions that can be asked, for a study of Phalen, it is worth narrowing inquiries to those interplaying with biophysical space and studying contestation.
A Hydro-Social Approach for Phalen
A more complete understanding of Phalen as a resilient, inclusive park requires new lines of inquiry that make explicit contestation in the development of the park and employ questions of management and community engagement. Situating Phalen within research on urban parks has brought forth biophysical space and social space studies, but besides Taylor (1999)’s preliminary investigation of power relations, contestation in changes and management decisions is minimally addressed. Political ecology can provide an approach that brings the biophysical and social into conversation to address power and contestation.
Political ecology connects social, economic, and ecological aspects across temporal and spatial scales through the study of power relations (Robbins 2004). Within political ecology, the hydro-social recognizes that “hydraulic environments are socio-physical constructions that are actively and historically produced, both in terms of social content and physical-environmental qualities” (Swyngedouw 2009). Swyngedouw (2009) argues that the production of water for people produces a series of enabling and disabling social and environmental conditions, and studying the social and environmental aspects together offers a deeper understanding of an issue.
At Phalen, a hydro-social approach could, for example, highlight the rise of neighborhood organizations in the 1970s and 80s and consider the organizations as potentially associated with changing neighborhood demographics. How did ice festivals became dragon boat festivals? Was the transition from ice to dragons smooth? And how has Minnesota’s
17 understanding of itself shifted during this time? The rhetoric and activities that took place at
Phalen Park between 1890 and 2018 can begin to answer these questions.
The Phalen of 2018 is no longer described as the magical fairy scene it once was, but instead as a “popular destination” and “one of the largest lakes in Saint Paul” (“Phalen Regional
Park” n.d.). The imagined boat-able, lit channel along the Phalen chain of lakes was never realized; dredging did occur, but a dam on Keller Lake, just upstream of Phalen, halted boat traffic. Today, the park continues to draw residents from the metro area and offers a recreation center, biking, golf, picnics, paddle sports, sailing lessons, swim lessons, fishing, and a floating library. The park also hosts events, such as 5ks, university rowing regattas, the Freeze Fest, and an annual dragon boat festival that began in 1999 (Lake Phalen 2018). Additionally, Phalen has received the physical manifestations of St. Paul’s sister-city relationship with Changsha, China.
In 2006, a statue from Changsha was erected along the lakeshore, and in 2018, construction began on a 1.2 acre Chinese Garden, which includes the Xiang Jiang Pavilion and a Hmong wall
(Figure 11; “St Paul-Changsha China Friendship Garden” 2018).
It is worth questioning if the apparent jump from Phalen as a “dream of beauty” to Phalen as host for dragon boat festivals and Hmong culture is truly a jump at all (Board of Park
Commissioners 1895: 21). The increase in diversity at Phalen has fostered activities that early park designers may never have imagined, but the development of community groups and growth of a diverse population have shifted Minnesota’s understanding of itself. The Park Board, Water
Department, public, and Phalen Lake itself engaged in power struggles over the future of the park, and Phalen emerged as it is today.
The hydro-social also supports inquiries into how water is currently managed and how a sense of stewardship is being built within the new populations surrounding the Phalen Park.
Since the 1970s, neighborhoods around Lake Phalen have become increasingly more diverse;
18 today the area is approximately 5% African-American, 30% Asian, and 5% Latinx (“Race and
Ethnicity” n.d.). In the broader Phalen-Payne Neighborhood, which includes the western shore of
Lake Phalen and area to the southwest, 47% of people speak a language other than English and
28% live below the poverty line (“Payne-Phalen Neighborhood” 2018). The hydro-social brings into question the ways the space and management practices can change comfort and involvement of different populations.
One potential change in involvement is related to water stewardship. Eutrophication, first experienced in the 1970s, continues today. Phosphorus and chlorophyll a levels barely meet state standards, and excess plant and algae growth are removed each summer with a large boat that traverses the lake (“Lake Phalen” n.d.; Lake Phalen 2018). The lake continues to be safe for swimming and supports fish populations. That being said, the fish cannot be eaten due to high mercury content, which stems from coal combustion, mining, and incineration of mercury- containing products (“Phalen” 2018; Weller and Russell 2016). Cultural aspects, such as systems of energy use, fertilizing lawns, and fishing add a social component to water quality issues.
Cultural understandings of water offer new opportunities and challenges for water stewardship. Kao Vue, a Hmong man who has lived in Minnesota for 15 years, describes, “We believe the lake’s owner is here with us now so we must honor the owner, always… We don’t dare pollute the waters or trash the area… We must respect [Lake Phalen], its owner, the dirt, the land, the wildlife, in all its forms” (Xaykaothao 2017). The opportunity exists for strong water stewardship at Phalen Park, but managing the park with conceptions of the spiritual is a new challenge for the Park Board.
19 Conclusion
Two lines of inquiry exist for studying parks: biophysical space and social interaction.
Phalen’s history fits the two categories, but studying the park through one line of inquiry cannot fully explain power relations in Phalen Park’s development, management, and community engagement. When a hydro-social approach is employed to understand the park, power dynamics between competing actors emerge and allow Cranz and Boland (2014)’s conception of
“sustainable parks” in the ecological sense to merge with Low et al. (2005)’s “social sustainability.” Together, these concepts of sustainability allow parks to be self-sufficient, ecological communities that maintain and preserve social relations and meanings. Further investigation into Phalen should use a model that studies the power dynamics of development, management, and community engagement, and relies on personal interactions with constituents, in addition to written works.
One future investigation could ask why community organizations arose in the 1970s and what role these organizations play in decision making. Phalen Park fell out of use at approximately the same time Phalen fell to the bottom of the Metro Council Regional Parks list, neighborhood demographics were changing, and community organizations were rising. This correlation suggests the events were in some way related, be it a shift in public to private funding, the amenities wanted by new user groups, or another reason. Methods including interviews, surveys, and mapping, such as Low et al. (2005) used, would be ideal for understanding the impacts of community organizations and changing demographics.
Another future investigation could ask how water is managed and how stewardship is being built among diverse populations. An influx of Asian cultures, some of which promote spiritual connections to water, raise new opportunities for stewardship. The extent to which the
St. Paul Department of Parks and Recreation is embracing new understanding of water and
20 distributing decision-making and management power could be addressed by ethnographic research methods, including participant observation, interviews, and oral histories.
Overall, Phalen Park has changed drastically in the past 120 years, but within the past 80 years, one thing has remained the same: the park is a welcoming place for minority groups, from
African Americans to the Hmong population. More investigation should explore the ways Phalen
Park has supported minority populations, but as parks continue to evolve in St. Paul and across the United States, Phalen should serve as a model for minority involvement.
21 Figures
Figure 1. Location of Phalen Regional Park in the Twin Cities (Google 2018).
Figure 2. The fence surrounding the Phalen Beach swimming area is completely exposed due to low water levels (Langland 1960).
22
Figure 3. The channel around Round Island is nearly dry (Editorial Department 1958).
Figure 4. A woman walks across the dike through Phalen Lake (“Large Piece of Land Cuts Phalen Lake in Two” 1959).
23
Figure 5. Campers along the shore of Lake Phalen, with a sailboat (“Group of people sailing and camping…” 1890).
Figure 6. Vision for Phalen Park in 1895 (Board of Park Commissioners 1895).
24
Figure 7. Canoe racks in the Round Island channel (Sweet 1905).
Figure 8. Phalen beach with waterslides, diving platforms, and a seating area (Gibson 1915).
25
Figure 9. Ice skating on Phalen Lake in the beach area (St. Paul Daily 1923).
Figure 10. Map of Phalen, 1947. Note the lack of development to the east, the road along the lakeshore, Round Lake to the northwest, and the channel connecting Round and Phalen Lakes (“dv04007” 1947).
26
Figure 11. Xiang Jiang Pavilion in the Chinese garden at Phalen Park (“St Paul-Changsha China Friendship Garden” 2018).
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36