Snively's Road
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MN History Text 54/4 8/20/07 9:17 AM Page 146 MH 54-4 Winter 94-95.pdf 4 8/20/07 12:11:24 PM MN History Text 54/4 8/20/07 9:17 AM Page 147 In the late summer of 1929, dignitaries gathered to dedicate Duluth’s recently completed Skyline Parkway, a picturesque drive winding high above Lake SNIVELY’S Superior along the crest of the city’s hills. Among those present was Mayor Samuel F. Snively, the man chiefly responsible for the construction and development of the unique boulevard system. ROAD Through personal determination ROAD and a remarkable talent for rais- ing donations, Snively brought MARK RYAN more than three-quarters of the parkway to fruition, helping establish one of Duluth’s most noted landmarks. Terrace Parkway, as the initial portion of the road was first called, was the brainchild of William K. Rogers, a native of Ohio who became president of the State Bank of Duluth and the city’s first park board. In 1888 Rogers had presented a plan for a hilltop boulevard that would follow the ancient gravel shore- line left by glacial Lake Namadji, a larger ancestor of present-day Lake Superior. A companion park stretching along Lake Superior’s shore from Seventh Avenue East to Fortieth Avenue East would be connected by per- pendicular links following several rivers and creeks that plunged from the crest of the hills toward the lake. In the late 1880s Mr. Ryan is a writer and film maker who Winding Mission Creek Road, native-stone resides in Minneapolis. He grew up in bridge, and Hupmobile, about 1926 Duluth near Seven Bridges Road. WINTER 1994 147 MH 54-4 Winter 94-95.pdf 5 8/20/07 12:11:24 PM MN History Text 54/4 8/20/07 9:17 AM Page 148 Equestrians explore Terrace Parkway in springtime, 1890s Duluth experienced a real estate boom, and city Park in 1867, and Boston’s Franklin Park in 1883. officials optimistically foresaw a population Nor was park building restricted to urban settings. growth of nearly half a million within five years. The country’s first national park, Yellowstone, was They deemed a park system such as the one created in 1872, as were several county and state Rogers suggested an essential advertising tool for park systems such as Minnesota’s, begun in 1891 promoting the up-and-coming city.1 with Itasca State Park. Rogers’s plan for Duluth fit During the last half of the nineteenth century, well into the movement’s emphasis on following a strong park-building movement led by the natural contours and features of the land.2 Frederick Law Olmsted was sweeping across the As early as 1887, Duluth’s board of public United States. As the size and density of the coun- works had surveyed the natural boulevard line try’s population centers grew, the demand for along the crest of the hills, and a newspaper edito- urban open space also increased. Parks were rial that same year appealed to the city council established in many cities, including New York’s and citizens to develop a parks system. When the Central Park in 1853, Philadelphia’s Fairmont city created a park board two years later, the 1 Duluth Herald, Apr. 10, 1933, sec. 2, p. 6, Apr. 29, 1911, p. 25, Aug. 4, 1910, p. 8, hereafter Herald; R. L. Polk and Co.’s Duluth Directory, 1887–1888, p. 363; Duluth News Tribune, Mar. 31, 1935, p. 4, hereafter News Tribune; Dora M. McDonald, This Is Duluth (Duluth: Central H. S. Printing Dept., 1950), 12; Duluth Tribune, Jan. 21, 1887, p. 4, hereafter Tribune; Duluth Dept. of Parks and Recreation, 1911 Annual Report of Board of Park Commissioners [n.p.]. 2 William D. Hunt, Jr., Encyclopedia of American Architecture (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1980), 399; Charles E. Doell and Gerald B. Fitzgerald, A Brief History of Parks and Recreation in the United States (Chicago: Athletic Institute, 1954), 58; Roy W. Meyer, Everyone’s Country Estate: A History of Minnesota’s Parks (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1991), 5. 148 MINNESOTA HISTORY MH 54-4 Winter 94-95.pdf 6 8/20/07 12:11:25 PM MN History Text 54/4 8/20/07 9:17 AM Page 149 A popular tallyho caravan, 1900s Minnesota legislature gave it the power to fund would line the dock. They also stopped at the parks through municipal bonds. A $300,000 bond downtown Spalding Hotel for riders. Coaching was eventually issued, and work on the first leg of parties became a common sight, and tallyho Terrace Parkway began in 1889 under Rogers’s caravans carrying large groups of sightseers— close supervision. By midsummer three miles of as many as 30 wagonloads at a time—traveled boulevard were nearly ready for use. When fin- along the hilltop to present their passengers ished two years later at a cost of $312,000, the with stunning panoramas of the city and its roadway ran 450 to 600 feet above lake level from large harbor. When presidential candidate Chester Creek in the east to Millers Creek in William Jennings Bryan campaigned in Duluth Lincoln Park (then called Garfield). Rustic logs in 1900, he toured the boulevard and report- rimmed the drive, and granite boulders lined edly agreed afterward with the local assess- curves, such as those around the small lakes ment that there was no finer drive in America. known as Twin Ponds.3 The Duluth Daily News claimed Terrace “Tallyhos” became the popular vehicle for Parkway’s only rival in the world was along the excursions along the boulevard. Teams of four or Mediterranean. After Luther Mendenhall suc- six horses usually pulled these single- and double- ceeded Rogers on the park board, that body decker coaches that seated up to 15 passengers. eventually renamed the parkway Rogers Luxury steamers coming from the east made Boulevard. Despite its popularity, by century’s weekly calls to the port of Duluth, where tallyhos end it still spanned only about five miles.4 3 McDonald, This Is Duluth, 95; Tribune, May 20, 1887, p. 4; Duluth Evening Herald, July 1, 1889, p. 3, July 11, 1889, p. 3, hereafter Evening Herald; Herald, Aug. 4, 1910, p. 8; 1911 Report of Park Commissioners. 4 Minneapolis Tribune, Jan. 19, 1964, Picture Magazine, p. 18; Evening Herald, Oct. 1, 1900, p. 1; McDonald, This Is Duluth, 96, 123; Herald, Apr. 10, 1933, sec. 2, p. 6; 1911 Report of Park Commissioners. WINTER 1994 149 MH 54-4 Winter 94-95.pdf 7 8/20/07 12:11:25 PM MN History Text 54/4 8/20/07 9:17 AM Page 150 nter Samuel Frisby Snively. Born near persistence to turn dreams into reality, within a Greencastle, Pennsylvania, on November 24, few short years he amassed a small fortune buying 1859, and a graduate of a Philadelphia law and selling real estate. He just as quickly lost it in E school, Snively had arrived in Duluth on the panic of 1893 which swept across the country.9 March 21, 1886. Twenty-six years old and with Snively left the city a few years later to try only $15 in his pocket, he had by year’s his luck prospecting in the gold fields of end formed a partnership with Alaska. When that proved unsuc- another lawyer, Charles P. Craig, cessful, he returned to Duluth, creating what would become a where he established a real notable law firm in the city’s estate business called the early history.5 Spring Garden Company Snively was a “good- and began developing sized man,” recalled his property he owned in the niece, Zelda Snively back country above the Overland. “Broad shoul- eastern Duluth neigh- dered, with a tenor borhoods of Lakeside voice, steel-blue eyes, and Lester Park. In light brown hair. Gre- 1901 he started build- garious, outgoing, but ing a summer home stern. He didn’t fool there. The house, around; he wasn’t that which featured stone kind of person.”6 walls as much as two Snively’s short dia- feet thick, became the ry, kept during his first centerpiece of a 400- year in Duluth, reveals a acre farm. Snively raised man who worked hard at dairy cattle and feed his law practice and at crops, and the farm, prof- bettering himself. He often itable from the start, was spent evenings working at his known for its beautiful set- office, socializing at the homes ting and layout. Offering an of friends, or attending lectures impressive glimpse of Lake on English literature. Walks around Superior through nearby Amity town and visits to a gymnasium Creek valley, the property included kept him in good physical health.7 Samuel Snively, father of two stone barns, a bunkhouse, and a Snively’s diary also reveals that Duluth’s parkway system small racetrack in front of the he spent much of his time as a house. Farm guests could bet on lawyer examining abstracts for real estate transac- horse races or eat lunch in the pines along the tions. Seeing land prices beginning to surge fired creek north of the house where he had designed a new passion in the attorney. The final entry in and constructed several picnic sites with stone his diary, dated January 27, 1887, reads: “Spent tables and benches.10 the evening alone in the office drawing com- Snively had inherited his appreciation for the plaints and dreaming over real estate.”8 outdoors from his mother, Margaret H. Snively. Like the rivers and creeks cascading down the “My mother,” he once wrote, “was a woman of slopes of his newfound city, Snively became restless energy, a lover of all that was grand and known as a “plunger.” Possessing the ability and beautiful in nature, and an influential representa- 5 Samuel F.