Fall 2005.Pub

The Society of Architectural Historians News Missouri Valley Chapter Volume XI Number 3 Fall 2005 Letter Simonds is often overlooked by historians, in contrast HANNIBAL’S RIVERVIEW PARK: 1 to contemporaries such as Jens Jensen. While Jensen A PUBLIC LANDSCAPE was an able promoter who wrote manifestos for prairie- BY O. C. SIMONDS inspired designs, Simonds was self-effacing and wrote By Karen Bode Baxter and Matthew Cerny books, such as Landscape-Gardening, which were with help from Mandy Ford and Sara Bularzik practical and instructive but not philosophical.2 Riverview Park covers 465 acres of high bluffs and Simonds’ professional training began as a student of deep draws overlooking the Mississippi River at the civil engineering at the University of Michigan in 1874. northern edge of Hannibal in Marion County, Missouri. He studied architecture under William LeBaron Jenney The park owes its existence to the generosity of Wilson for two years until the architecture program closed, B. Pettibone, who created and opened the park in 1909. then went to work for Jenney’s firm in Chicago after Pettibone sought strictly to respect the natural appear- completing his engineering degree in 1878. Jenney ance of the land and to avoid all traces of artificiality. assigned Simonds the responsibility for draining the To do this, he turned to one of the leading proponents low-lying marsh at Graceland Cemetery on the north of the prairie style of landscape design, Ossian Cole side of Chicago. Simonds. With his advanced understanding of native Midwestern plants, Simonds was able to take bare land Bryan Lathrop, a prominent Chicago speculator and that had been abused by farming and turn it into an en- philanthropist (whose 1892 house by McKim, Mead & hanced representation of what most people now assume White still stands at 120 East Bellevue Place), repre- to be a native forest. The mature park remains today a sented the cemetery, and Simonds credited him with rare unaltered example of this style as envisioned by its providing his real education in landscape gardening.3 designer. Lathrop inspired Simonds to approach his career with humility, convincing him that landscape gardening was OSSIAN SIMONDS the “rarest and greatest” although the “least understood When Hannibal newspapers looked back on the crea- and appreciated” of the fine arts.4 At his mentor’s sug- tion of Riverview Park, they often stated that Ossian gestion, Simonds read Andrew Jackson Downing’s Cole Simonds was an Englishman. In fact, he was born magazine, The Horticulturist, works by Frederick Law on his father’s farm near Grand Rapids, Michigan in Olmsted Sr., and writings from the English landscape 1855. Julia Sniderman Bachrach, Simonds’ biographer school. This early friendship foreshadowed Simonds’ in Midwestern Landscape Architecture, laments that relationship with the benefactor of Riverview Park, since Wilson B. Pettibone was also a philanthropist and visionary, yet very humble. Frederick Hibberd’s statue of Mark Twain was erected in Riverview Park in Hannibal in 1913, four years after the park’s opening. Ossian Cole Simonds designed the park and added this more formal setting for the statue. Photo courtesy Steve Chou. In 1880, Simonds began transplanting indigenous marked that he was evidently inspired by creating 6 plants to Graceland, including oak, maple, and ash views and vistas of Lake Michigan. This characteris- hornbeam. Bachrach notes that popular enthusiasms at tic is evident in Riverview as well, where he was work- that time involved exotic foreign flora and most people ing at the same time, and where he created even more considered native plants invasive weeds. Simonds dramatic views of the Mississippi River from the bluffs worked full-time as superintendent of the grounds from in the park. 1883 to 1888, crafting a cemetery that closely resem- bled nature. He incorporated elements of the native While working in Chicago, Simonds also worked from prairie, such as clustering the trees and allowing the 1895 to 1912 for the Boulevard and Park Association grasses to grow untrimmed. During the 1890s and of Quincy, Illinois, less than fifteen miles upriver from 1900s, Simonds published many articles in journals Hannibal. There he designed and managed eight parks. such as Park and Cemetery and Modern Cemetery and Bachrach notes that Simonds preferred the design op- gained a reputation as the “dean of cemetery design.”5 portunities of this area to Chicago because of “the ex- pansive landscapes where natural attributes could be Following Graceland, Simonds worked as an independ- preserved and existing vegetation could be retained and ent consultant to design Fort Sheridan, north of Chi- enhanced with masses of indigenous plants.”7 Simonds cago (now a National Historic Landmark). Simonds’ became expert in the terrain of Quincy, appreciating the plan included a parade ground for military drills, but he way its meadows and ravines could provide vistas. also created a “meadow that extended back from the wooded bluff with a natural ravine as its border.” By 1915, when Wilhelm Miller wrote The Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening, he recognized Simonds By the 1890s, Simonds was in demand and was able to along with Jens Jensen as an initiator of the style “that form O. C. Simonds and Company, later O. C. Simonds drew inspiration from the native landscape of the Mid- and West, with offices on Buena Avenue in the Lake- west, its landforms, waterways, and vegetation.”8 Si- view area of Chicago. Most of the office documents monds himself said that he was only attempting to cre- were destroyed in a fire, and few of Simonds’ plans ate the most beautiful and natural effect. have survived to the present. During the 1900s, Si- monds worked on Lincoln Park, constructing the fa- WILSON PETTIBONE mous lagoons. With his old friend Lathrop, he worked Wilson B. Pettibone came to Hannibal in 1876 at the to extend the park north to Devon Avenue. His policy age of 26 to direct his father’s lumber operations. The was to keep park buildings low and dark in color, so as Pettibone lumber interests were the most prominent in not to encroach on the natural setting. He encouraged the Mississippi River Valley at the very time that the the large park restaurant, the South Pond Refectory entire mid-section of the nation was being developed. (now the Café Brauer) to be built by Prairie School ar- Pettibone quickly organized several local lumber com- chitect Dwight H. Perkins, and included a naturalistic panies, including the Hannibal Saw Mill and the Hanni- lagoon as well as low-lying loggias. A reporter re- bal Door & Sash Company, two of the community’s largest industries. His business endeavors followed the evolution of the lumber industry to the northwest, and he acquired interests in several associations and companies, such as Missouri Lumber, the Louisiana Long Leaf Company, the Lambert Lumber Company of Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and Pettibone Tim- ber of Washington. The Pettibone lumber operations became the linchpin of Hannibal’s economy, making it a major lumbering cen- ter in the Mississippi River valley.9 Petti- bone was also a banking leader and was active in the Hannibal Chamber of Commerce. His success was reflected in three progres- sively larger and newer houses, culminating in the 1913 Georgian Revival mansion, Cliff- A postcard reproduced in the Hannbal Courier-Post shows how Riverview Park descends to the Wabash Bridge and the edge of the river. side, at 8 Stillwell Place. But he is best re- membered as Hannibal’s greatest philanthro- Newsletter 2 Fall 2005 pist. In addition to Riverview Park, he gave land and bal, Wilson B. Pettibone outlined his plans to secure a money to Levering Hospital; furnishings for the or- location for a public park for Hannibal’s people. He phans home; the entire cost, over $200,000, to rebuild intended to have it “converted into a public park with the North School after it burned (it is now called the the usual boulevards, drives, walks and places of resort, Pettibone School); 80 acres for a community youth recreation and rest, and with the expectation that the camp on the Mississippi River; playgrounds for several title to it without valuable consideration will ultimately other public schools; and funds to pave several streets. pass to the City of Hannibal . for the perpetual use by the people for that purpose.”10 He already had selected Pettibone guaranteed the Christmas savings accounts of the name Riverview Park and was urging the creation three thousand Hannibal school children after their sav- of a park association to which he could deed the ings bank failed at the beginning of the Great Depres- grounds, with the expectation that work would begin on sion. Landscape projects were especially important. park improvements early the following spring. Pettibone paid $15,000 for land to create a park in front of the Eugene Field School. He purchased property Pettibone began to acquire property on the northern end surrounding the Levering Hospital and transformed it of Hannibal in 1908, parcels that had been farms and an into another park. He built the sunporch at St. Eliza- apple orchard.11 He focused his purchases on the high beth’s Hospital and the playground at the Mark Twain bluffs that afforded scenic views of the Mississippi School. These efforts to provide naturalistic settings River. He presented an initial donation of about 240 for schools and hospitals culminated in the creation of acres to the city in 1909, but he continued to add acre- Riverview Park. Throughout the park’s design and de- age to the park, with at least four separate purchases velopment process, Pettibone maintained an active role, noted by the newspaper in 1917, 1924, and 1928.

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