MINNESOTA ARCHITECTURE - HISTORY INVENTORY FORM Project: Local Historic Bridge Study - Phase II St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota Identification SHPO Inventory Number RA-SPC-7135 Historic Name Bridge L8560 / Phalen Park Arch Bridge Review and Compliance Number Current Name Bridge L8560 Form (New or Updated) Updated Field # Description Address N/A Pedestrian Bridge over Lake Phalen Channel Linear Feature? No City/Twp St. Paul HPC Status: Potential County Ramsey Resource Type Structure Architect/Engineer C. A. P. Turner, CWA Legal Desc. Twp 28 Range 23 Sec 15 QQ SWNE Style No Style USGS Quad ST. PAUL EAST Construction Date 1910 UTM Zone 15N Datum NAD83 Easting 487984 Northing 4973241 Original Use Transportation Property ID (PIN) Current Use Transportation Description Bridge L8560, also known as the Phalen Park Arch Bridge, is a reinforced-concrete deck arch bridge located in Phalen Park in St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota. The bridge consists of a 55-foot-long concrete-arch main span and a concrete slab approach span at each end. It has an overall bridge length of 110 feet with 15-foot-long concrete slab approach spans on each end, for a total structure length of 140 feet. The bridge has an overall width of 42 feet. Aligned in an approximate north-to- south orientation, the bridge carries a two-lane multi-use trail over the South Canal of Lake Phalen. Phalen Park is roughly bounded by Arcade and Forest Streets to the west; East Shore Drive to the east; Frost Avenue to the north; and Jessamine Avenue to the south. There are two lakes in the park that are connected by a canal system. The larger of the two, Lake Phalen, is primarily located along the east edge of the park, while the smaller Round Lake is to the west. The area south of the bridge consists of a parking lot and a moderately wooded area with deciduous trees. The area north of the bridge is planted with sod and deciduous trees. The embankments on either side of the bridge are covered with a combination of sod and mulch. The substructure of Bridge L8560 consists of two reinforced-concrete abutments and two piers. The superstructure of the bridge is comprised of three spans. The main span is a closed spandrel, reinforced-concrete elliptical arch. The bridge is faced in random-coursed, square-cut, ashlar, Kasota limestone with engaged pilasters at the piers. The railing features Gothic arch openings. The deck is cast-in-place concrete with a clear roadway width of 38.3 feet, and approximately 6-inch-tall curbs on either side on which the railings rest. EVALUATION AND ANALYSIS Historical Context Reinforced Concrete Highway Bridges in MN, 1900-1945 Historical Narrative Bridge L8560 is located in Phalen Park, just west of Lake Phalen. The first parks in St. Paul were public squares given to the City by St. Paul citizens in the late 1840s (Saint Paul City Planning 1976:7; Schmidt 2002:44). In 1872, Horace W. S. Cleveland, who was then planning the Minneapolis park system, addressed the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce. Cleveland urged them to acquire parkland, suggested potential locations for parks and other amenities, and recommended that the City set RA-SPC-7135 MINNESOTA ARCHITECTURE - HISTORY INVENTORY FORM Project: Local Historic Bridge Study - Phase II St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota aside land for public parks (Schmidt 2002:44). The concept for the St. Paul park system was developed by Cleveland in a series of recommendations and plans created between 1872 and 1888 (Saint Paul City Planning 1976:7). After the creation of the Board of Park Commissioners in 1887, the park system received an increased level of improvements (Saint Paul City Planning 1976:7; Schmidt 2002:45). Como Park (1873) and Phalen Park (1894) were the first major recreational sites developed in St. Paul. Also, beginning in the 1880s, parks became more integrated into the design and planning of residential development (Zellie and Peterson 2001:8-9). In the early twentieth century a greater emphasis began to be placed on the development of playgrounds and recreational activities. As a result, the Bureau of Parks(Board of Park Commissions) became a part of the newly created Department of Parks, Playgrounds, and Public Buildings in the mid-1910s (Schmidt 2002:55). The acquisition of several large parks during this period made the development of playgrounds and recreational opportunities possible. Large parks acquired between 1900 and 1935 include Harriet Island, Battle Creek, Highland, Hidden Falls, and Shadow Falls Parks (Saint Paul City Planning 1976:10). Phalen Park was laid out by civil engineers Haley and Newell in 1887 (Zellie and Peterson 2001:12). The park is named after Edward Phalen, an early settler in the Phalen Park area (Saint Paul Parks and Recreation 2000:2). The land for Phalen Park was incrementally acquired by the City of Saint Paul through condemnation efforts beginning in 1894 (Peabody 1915:619). The park land was largely acquired by 1895, but land continued to be acquired into the twentieth century (Zellie and Peterson 2001:8-9; Peabody 1915:619). Phalen Park was known as an aquatic park as it surrounded Lake Phalen and Rounds Lake. The lakes are connected by a designed set of canals that were intended for recreational use (HNTB Corporation 2007). Phalen Park continued to grow and change into the twentieth century, allowing for a beach house, golf course, and other amenities to be added to the park. The park became popular and was the eastern terminus of the Dale-Phalen streetcar line (Diers and Isaacs 2007). In 1955, amenities included an 18-hole golf course, bathing beach, boat rentals, picnic facilities, ball fields, a skating rink, tennis courts, and playgrounds (City of Saint Paul 1955). Today, Phalen Park includes an 18-hole golf course and driving range; the Phalen Recreation Center; a beach and beach house; a boat launch; a covered picnic area; a picnic pavilion; picnic tables; an amphitheater; fishing piers; restrooms; playgrounds; baseball and softball fields; sand volleyball; an ice rink; and trails (City of Saint Paul 2013a; City of Saint Paul 2013b). Bridge L8560 was constructed in 1910 to carry “vehicular traffic from the Arcade Street Park entrance drive over the canal between Round Lake and Lake Phalen” (HNTB 2007:4). The bridge, which cost $10,474 to construct, was designed by the National Stone Manufacturing Company and built by a local St. Paul contractor named Jacob Lauer (Saint Paul Board of Park Commissioners 1910a; Saint Paul Board of Park Commissioners 1910b; Saint Paul Department of Parks, Playgrounds and Public Buildings 1919:30). In 1923, some minor repairs were made to the coping and the arch of the bridge (Bureau of Bridges Department of Public Work St. Paul 1923; HNTB 2007:4-6). In 1934, the bridge underwent a more extensive rehabilitation that was funded by the Civil Works Administration (CWA) and designed by the St. Paul Department of Public Works, Bureau of Bridges. During the rehabilitation, the exterior (originally open spandrel) was faced with stone and the original Classical Revival railing was replaced with a stone railing with Gothic Revival style openings, which changed the aesthetics of the bridge from Classical Revival to Rustic style. The Rustic style design followed the work-relief aesthetic that commonly used natural materials and period revival designs (HNTB Corporation 2007). In 1976, the canal under the bridge was dredged as a part of the renewal of Phalen Park. At that time newly exposed areas of the arch were found to be in disrepair; the stone was spalling, but no repairs were made. Portions of the east railing were damaged by vandalism in 1979 and subsequently repaired; however, no other work was done and the rest of the bridge continued to deteriorate. Due to continued deterioration, the bridge was closed to vehicular traffic and the waterway under it was also closed (HNTB Corporation 2007). The bridge was rehabilitated in 2012. As part of the rehabilitation, a new concrete deck was installed, railings were repaired to meet safety requirements, the entirety of the stone on the spandrel walls and railing was severely deteriorated stone and replaced in-kind, and precast arch liner panels were added to the underside of the arch for structural integrity (ONE 2013). The rehabilitation project was reviewed by the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and was found to meet the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation (SOI’s Standards) and resulted in no adverse effect on the bridge (Letter from Britta Bloomberg, Deputy State Historic Preservation officer, to Tamara E. Cameron, Chief Regulatory Branch U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, personal communication April 29, 2010; NPS 2013). RA-SPC-7135 MINNESOTA ARCHITECTURE - HISTORY INVENTORY FORM Project: Local Historic Bridge Study - Phase II St. Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota Park Bridges Phalen Park was one of the largest parks developed within the city of St. Paul. The rise of urban parks “coincided with urban expansion, the growth of city and state road systems, and the introduction of reinforced-concrete” (Frame 1988a:E14). According to the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted, urban parks were meant to be a refuge from the commercial and industrial centers and immigrant-crowded neighborhoods (Frame 1988a:E14). Within this context, a bridge located in a park setting “was not meant to be merely an expected necessity,” but rather an opportunity for the park commission and landscape architect to “request a special bridge design, in harmony with the grand park scheme” (Frame 1988a:E14). Park bridges also provided “an ideal opportunity to explore the possibilities of the new concrete” (Frame 1988a:E15). Located within one of the largest parks in St.