USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Vol. I > Part 47
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On the 24th of January, 187I, a meeting was called, at which Hon. G. V. N. Lothrop presided, to consider the matter of a park and boulevard, but as the meeting was somewhat informal, it was proposed to call a more public one the next week at the city hall. The result of these meetings was the passage through the legislature, then in session, of the Park Aet of April 15, 1871, and the appoint- ment of six commissioners, George V. N. Lothrop, John J. Bagley, Robert P. Toms, Merrill I. Mills, A. Smith Bagg and William A. Butler.
The board thus organized, solicited and obtained four considerable bids for a site. First, one down the river, which was quickly withdrawn, and does not figure in this report; second, one on Grand River Avenue, consisting of 500 acres, including the Tireman farm; third, one on the west side of the Pontiac Turnpike, four and a half miles from the city hall, of 410 acres at $190 per aere; and fourth, one on Jefferson Avenue, three miles from the city hall. The majority of the board submitted a report to the council on the 21st day of November, IS7I, describing the various offers made to them, stating that the Jefferson Avenue site had been chosen. A minority report was submitted by
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A. Smith Bagg, deprecating the purchase of any park just at this time, as it would necessarily add to the tax levy, but at the same time Mr. Bagg suggested that, if it was fully determined that a park was necessary, three small parks of 200 acres each should be purchased, one east, one north, and one west, of the city, and that they should be connected by boulevards.
The majority report was adopted and the mayor was requested to call a citi- zen's meeting to act on the issue of bonds to pay for the land. The mayor, William W. Wheaton, was personally in favor of the park, but doubted the legality of the law appointing the commissioners, and for that reason he vetoed the resolution. It was, however, passed over his veto, and he called a citizens' meeting at the court room in the city hall.
Up to this time the function of the citizens' meetings was similar to that of the later board of estimates. These meetings were called annually, or more often if necessary, and all citizens were supposed to attend and have an equal voice in their deliberations. The estimates for each year were made by the coun- cil, and submitted to the crowd and approved or rejected by them; and the meeting could scale down or wholly eliminate any of the estimates, but could not increase or make additional estimates. This process might answer where only a few people attended the meeting, but at this meeting, and at a subsequent one, "there was so much noise, confusion and violence, that no intelligent dis- cussion could be had, and no result was reached." The action of the meeting served to persuade the legislature to repeal the law permitting citizens' meetings, and to organize the board of estimates in its place.
The park board, finding that they could not purchase lands under the law as it then stood, applied to the legislature in 1873 to enlarge their powers, so as to permit them to purchase lands within certain limits, and to submit their actions to the common council, expecting the council to issue bonds for the amount necessary to cover their purchases, without question. The membership of the board had been changed by the substitution of Charles C. Trowbridge and Charles I. Walker for William A. Butler and A. Smith Bagg.
The commissioners had expressed a decided preference for the Jefferson Avenue site, and the property owners in other parts of the city were constantly attempting to create a public dissatisfaction. Doubtless the majority of the people were well satisfied, but the minority were exasperatingly agile and demonstrative. A committee of twenty of the disaffected ones was chosen at a meeting held at Young Men's Hall, April 21, 1873, and they prepared a lengthy memorial and resolutions which they presented to the council requesting that body to defeat the park bill at all hazards. At the head of this committee was Capt. Eber B. Ward, and the others were nearly all prominent business men and lawyers.
It is particularly to be noticed that one member of this committee was A. Smith Bagg, who had been one of the park commissioners as first organized. One of the most persistent, and certainly the most influential of the minority was the mayor himself, Mr. Hugh Moffat, whose actions in their behalf resulted in the entire defeat of the park plan.
At the request of this committee the council concluded to wait until the commissioners should ask for the issuing of bonds before doing anything more in the matter.
On the 12th of August, 1873, the park commissioners made a full report of their work to the council, showing that they had entered into agreements to
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purchase 375 acres of land on Jefferson Avenue, opposite the island, and that they expected to purchase, or condemn, seventy-five aeres more, and asked that the council order $300,000 in bonds to be issued as provided in the park act.
This report was referred to the committee on ways and means, David Preston, Guy F. Hinchman, and Charles M. Garrison, and the city counselor, Dewitt C. Holbrook. A majority report favored the issuing of the bonds, because the council could have no choice as the law stood, but the minority report of C. M. Garrison alone was adverse, because, as he said, he believed the park act to be uncon- stitutional and void, and that the legislature could not compel the council to issue the bonds. On a vote being had, it was found that the two parties were a tie, and the resolution to issue the bonds did not pass.
The commissioners at once applied to the supreme court to compel the council to issue the bonds, alleging that it was their duty so to do when requested by the park board, but the supreme court held that the council had a right to refuse if they so voted.
The option which the board had obtained for lands for the park would expire on the first day of January, 1874, and in order to throw the responsibility for the failure of the park on the council, they made a further report December 5, 1873, and again requested the council to order the necessary bonds to issue. This time they met with better success, and their petition was granted to the extent of directing the controller to issue $200,000 in bonds to purchase a por- tion of the chosen site. This resolution was vetoed by Mayor Moffat, but passed over his veto, and the controller issued and signed the bonds and handed them to the mayor for his signature, as required by the park act. The mayor refused to sign the bonds, and the park board once more applied to the supreme court, only to be told by that tribunal that the park act of 1873 was entirely void, and that they could not act under it.
Until this time, Mr. Lothrop had been the moving spirit in the whole work, but his failures had discouraged him, and from this time he either took no part whatever, or assisted the opposition in the subsequent boulevard and park matters.
In 1874 there was considerable talk of digging a tunnel for railway purposes under the river here, and a great deal was said about the matter in the papers, and some public meetings of citizens called. In the midst of the excitement the late Robert E. Roberts wrote a letter to the press, advocating the building of a bridge from the lower end of the island to the mainland, the running of a railroad the entire length of the island with a tunnel from the upper end to the Canadian shore. The matter did not take shape, though it was supposed the city would fall into immediate ruin unless the tunnel was built instantly.
The legislatures of 1875 and 1877 were allowed to pass without action ju the matter of a park, but early in the 1879 session Mr. Eber W. Cottrell intro- duced a bill for a boulevard which contained a clause for a park. While the bill was being discussed at Lansing, the following appeared in The Evening News of February 28, 1879:
"If, as reported at Lansing, the city of Detroit can obtain the fee of Belle Isle for $180,000, we believe that it could not do better than to purchase it. The sum is a very small one indeed compared with the benefits that could be derived from it in time. Circumstances will make its possession necessary some time or other, and it is wiser to buy now than to wait until the price has doubled or quadrupled. We are among those who believe Detroit has a future,
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and that it will need the improvements and means of health and civilization which other cities enjoy, and among them a park. It would be impossible to locate one in a more beautiful place than this island. It will not be necessary to improve it at once, that can be left to the future; but we should obtain posses- sion of it by all means when it can be done so cheaply."
This is the first public suggestion for using the island as a park that I have been able to find.
About this time the matter of the bridge or tunnel was again brought up, public meetings were held, and committees appointed to see Vanderbilt, Congress, the parliament at Ottawa, our state legislature and our city council, to force the matter through in some way, and one of the suggestions was Mr. Roberts' old scheme of buying the island in order to use it for that purpose. Messrs. Levi L. Barbour and William B. Moran especially exerted themselves to get the city to purchase the property. Messrs. George C. Langdon, John J. Bagley, Bela Hubbard, Charles I. Walker, Martin S. Smith and David O. Farrand ob- tained an agreement from the owners to sell the island to the city for $200,000, and presented the agreement to the council April S, 1879. Petitions with thousands of signatures were presented to the council urging the purchase, and when the matter was before the legislature petitions in abundance were sent to Lansing. The only remonstrance of which public notice was made was signed by Christian H. Buhl, William A. Butler, Allan Sheldon, Frederick Buhl, W. C. Colburn, Henry P. Baldwin, Alanson Sheley, Jacob S. Farrand, Chauncey Hurlbut, and C. M. Davison, and the reason for their opposition was not stated. Practically unanimous then, as the people were, the boulevard and park bills passed through the House and Senate together, meeting with the same friends and the same enemies.
The park act passed the senate May 23, 1879. The owners of the property were not all in Detroit, and it took some time to finish the details of the pur- chase, but the last deeds that vested the title of the property in the city were recorded September 25, 1879.
The city owning the property, naturally one of the first questions to be settled was who should have control of the island to transform it from its wild condition into a park. The old park act of 1871 was still in force, though the commis- sioners had not acted since 1874, and no new commissioners had been appointed since that date. It was alleged on the part of Mayor Langdon that he had the right to appoint commissioners, under that act, to take charge of and improve the island; on the other hand it was claimed that the powers of commissioners who might be appointed under that act were limited to such lands as were, by that act, contemplated to be purchased, viz., the Jefferson Avenue site, and that they could have no control over the island.
William G. Thompson was elected mayor in the fall of 1879, and took possession of his office on the first of the succeeding January. One of the last official acts of Mayor Langdon, who preceded Thompson, was to appoint Theo. Chapoton, W. K. Muir, John Pridgeon, Jr., Augustus Goebel, Edwin F. Conely, and William B. Moran, commissioners under the old park act. When these names came before the council for confirmation it was found that two republi- cans, Aldermen Ryan and Connor, voted with the democrats, and thus con- firmed the mayor's nominations. The commissioners themselves were not seriously objectionable, but the manner in which they were chosen was so offensive to the new mayor that he resolved not to recognize them in any manner, and
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not to permit them to have any control over the park. The mayor's attitude in the matter was approved by his own political party, by both of the city's legal departments, by the police department (which took possession of the island for him), and by the people generally. The board of estimates went so far in their approval of the mayor's course as to refuse, at his request, to make any appropriation for the improvement of the island while its possession was in contention.
Mayor Thompson, in his first message, said: "The park commission may have a legal existence, but it has nothing to do with Belle Isle. Any inter- ferences on its part with that island will be resisted." Unfortunately, Charles Ewers, a republican, but a firm friend of the Langdon park commission, was chosen president of the council. It will be remembered that at the republican national convention which nominated James A. Garfield for President, our Mayor Thompson was one of the delegates who voted continuously for General Grant for the third term; Thompson, as a delegate to that convention, was in Chicago on Friday, May 28, 1880, and the council took advantage of his absence to pass a resolution turning the custody and control of the island over to the Langdon commission.
If Mayor Thompson had been in Detroit, this resolution would have been useless, because it would have been vetoed at once, and they had no hope of being able to control votes enough to pass the resolution over the veto, but in the mayor's absence Alderman Ewers became acting mayor, and they knew that he would, if he could, approve of the measure. The situation was critical. If the mayor could return at once, he might veto the measure, but if he did not so return, it would become absolute with the consent of the acting mayor, Ewers. Telegrams were at once sent to Thompson, explaining the matter and requesting his immediate return. It was some hours before Thompson could be found in Chicago, but as soon as he received the telegrams he set out for home, and reached Detroit before 6 o'clock Saturday evening. In the mean- time, at noon of the same day, Acting Mayor Ewers had approved of the pro- ceedings of the council, and had sent them, with his approval, to the city clerk.
As soon as Mayor Thompson learned the situation of affairs, upon his arrival, he sent to the council a message vetoing the obnoxious resolution, and at once returned to Chicago. At the next meeting of the council the veto message was read, and it was voted not to receive it, but to return it to Thomp- son at Chicago. The convention was over and Thompson had returned to Detroit when the resolution to return his former veto came before him for approval. He promptly vetoed the resolution, and in his veto message said there seemed to be a conspiracy to deprive him of his voice in the city legis- lature, and said: "The entire matter forms the culmination of a series of intrigues on the part of the Langdon commissioners to obtain possession of Belle Isle, and its valuable possessions, against the better sentiment and wishes of a large majority of the taxpayers. The matter will soon be tested in the courts."
Indeed, the only thing left for the mayor to do was to appeal to the courts, for the commissioners were making demands upon the police department for the possession of the island, and entered into a lease with John Horn, Sr., of a portion of the Willis place, known as Inselruhe.
The application of the mayor to the supreme court was, in reality, to deter- mine the right of Mr. Ewers to approve the proceedings of the council. The effort of the commission was to delay the hearing of the matter by the court
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as long as possible and to get possession of the island at once. Patrolman Cohoon was living in the house at Inselruhe, holding it in the name of the police department. The lessee of the commissioners, on the night of July 19, 1880, went to the island with a gang of ruffians "yelling and screaming in a most frightful manner," and undertook to take forcible possession of the house and drive the occupant out, but finding Cohoon armed and determined to resist them, they finally departed "yelling like wild beasts." This was the only attempt to use force. The commission raised a question of pleading in the case in the supreme court, in which they were beaten, but the delay caused by deciding this question prevented the hearing of the main question, and the controversy was decided on its merits too late to be of any use.
In the summer of 1880, a resolution was introduced in the council looking to the sale of the island, and Alderman Warriner, who introduced the resolu- tion, said regarding the original purchase of it: "It is well known that this scheme was conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. We have had one year of it, and can see what a precious time we will have if the city is to keep it." The resolution was not entertained by the council, but a few days later the following letter appeared in one of the Detroit dailies:
"On my return from the east, Saturday last, I noticed the honorable the Common Council are discussing the advisability of selling Belle Isle Park, so called. As an humble citizen of the wealthy metropolis of Detroit, it is my judgment it had better be sold (if it can be legally) unless the municipal govern- ment can be placed in the power of men whose souls are large enough, whose ideas are broad enough, and whose principles are strong and honest enough to entirely ignore their personal grievances in the interests and for the improve- ment of the property of the city, and who are sufficiently considerate to show some regard for the welfare and health of the citizens. Should it be deemed advisable to sell, and place the purchase price at its original cost, with accrued interest, I think I can find a purchaser who will pay the amount in forty-eight hours. I could have done so six weeks ago. "August 2, 1880.
"George C. Langdon."
In the following March, 1881, Capt. John Pridgeon offered to give $225,000 for the island, and Alderman Warriner again attempted to get his resolution to sell the park acted upon by the council, but he was not successful.
The legislature being now in session, a bill was introduced to repeal the old park act, and the bill became a law a few days before the supreme court rendered its decision on the veto of Mayor Thompson. The council, having full authority now to act, passed an ordinance in July, 1881, for the government of the island, and the mayor appointed four persons to have control of the island as park commissioners, namely: Merrill I. Mills, August Marxhausen, William A. Moore and James McMillan-popularly known as "the four M's."
Later in the season another ordinance was passed requiring the ferry com- pany to pay the city two cents for every passenger they landed at the island. This requirement was, however, only in force for a short time, and was repealed September 27th. Although very little had been done to the island in the way of clearing it up, it was estimated that more than 200,000 persons visited it during the year 1881.
The name of the island was officially changed from Belle Isle to Belle Isle Park by the ordinance of the council of August 29, 1881.
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In the spring of 1883 the legislature passed an act which virtually confirmed the ordinance of July, 1881. It provided for the retention in office of the present commissioners until the terms for which they were originally appointed should expire, and changed them from officials holding under a city ordinance to officials holding under a state law.
In 1886 the council granted permission to Hugh McMillan, William A. Jackson, Frank E. Snow, William C. Williams, and Frank E. Fisher, and their assigns, to establish and operate an electric railway on the island, but no cor- poration was ever organized to do the work, and the ordinance was repealed January 31, 1893.
A radical change was made in the management of the island by the legis- lature in May, 1889. Up to this time there had been a continual rivalry and strife between the friends of the park and those of the boulevard, and to put an effectual end to these contentions, the legislature abolished the park com- mission, and in its place created a new commission, called "commissioners of parks and boulevards," giving the new officers all of the rights of the old commis- sion and the board of public works in the premises. The new commission was to consist of four members who were to be nominated by the mayor and appointed by the council. The first set of commissioners was appointed by the act itself, and were named as follows: Henry M. Duffield, Elliott T. Slocum, William B. Moran, and Francis F. Palms, but these men were to hold only until their successors could be chosen. The term of office was fixed at four years, and the four appointees were to choose by lot the term of each, so that one commissioner should retire at the expiration of each year, and the successor of each should be appointed for the full term of four years.
The persons who were named in the act of the legislature as commissioners were certainly unobjectionable, and no four names could have been found more suitable for the positions. However, the attempt of the legislature to usurp the province of the mayor and council to appoint these officials was at once resented, and on the 21st of May, 1889, Mayor Pridgeon sent in as a list of ยท new commissioners the names of George H. Russel, John Erhardt, William Livingston, Jr., and William K. Parcher, for one, two, three, and four years respectively. Accompanying these appointments, the mayor sent to the council a message, in which he said that the men appointed by the legislature were all good men, but he wished to resent the interference of the legislature in the matter, "for these reasons, and to indicate, so far as state interference allows to do so, the right of Detroit to govern her own affairs, I hasten to send in the names of their successors."
If one man, more than any other, had worked for the material advancement of the boulevard and park, first as a member of the legislature and afterwards as a member of the board of estimates, that one man was James A. Randall. As a recognition of his services, Mr. Randall was nominated, by the mayor, as successor to Mr. Russel, but his name was rejected by the council June 17, 1890. The rejection was, partly at least, due to the contentions then existing between the mayor and the council regarding other matters.
Under the legislative aet of 1901, approved May 4th, the board of com- missioners of parks and boulevards was abolished, and the office of commissioner of parks and boulevards was established. Under this act a commissioner was appointed by the common council for a term of four years from June 1, 1901. Since that date the appointment has been made by the mayor. Robert E.
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Bolger was the first commissioner appointed and he served until April 9, 1906, having been reappointed May 31, 1906. The commissioners since Mr. Bolger are named in the statistical and miscellaneous chapter of this volume, also the names of all who served upon the old board of commissioners of parks and boulevards.
Belle Isle has an area of 707 acres (with approach) and is valued between sixteen and seventeen millions of dollars. The city has expended over four millions in maintenance and improvements. The island has five and a half miles of shore drive, fourteen and a half miles of driveway, and five and a fraction miles of gravel walks. The island itself is but eighteen inches above the river level, but is never submerged owing to the even level of the Detroit River at every season.
When first purchased, Belle Isle was an unimproved area, abounding in native forest, sloughs, swales and was very unattractive. Soon after the posses- sion of the island by the city became assured, steps were taken to beautify the new park and with this in view, Commissioners McMillan, Ferry, Moore and Marxhausen secured the services of Frederick L. Olmstead, a noted landscape gardener, at a price of $7,000 per year, to superintend the improvements and plan them. Olmstead drew plans providing for a central driveway and with a stream, or artificial canal, running across one end of the island. The com- missioners left the matter entirely with him, but there were others who thought that a better arrangement might be secured. Among them was Michael J. Dee, a newspaper man, who was well acquainted with the character of the land on the island. Mr. Dee conceived the idea of a series of canals covering the island, the earth taken from them to be used in filling in the sloughs and marshy places. Olmstead's plan had been to use the city refuse to fill in these depressions, a slow and unsatisfactory process. Dee submitted his plans to Olmstead, but the latter was reluctant to accept them and in this was backed by the commissioners. The matter rested for a time, when another question regarding Belle Isle came up and supplied the opportunity of again reviving the Dee plan. Some of the citizens were in favor of selling beer and liquor on the island, but Commissioners Ferry and Moore were not in favor of this concession, consequently they resigned. Joseph A. Marsh and Frederick Seitz were then appointed in their places: Seitz died soon afterward and Elliot T. Slocum was named in his place. Under the new board of commissioners, Olmstead's plans were discarded and those similar to Dee's were adopted, with the result that Belle Isle was immeasurably beautified by the criss-cross canals, the earlier ones dug with natural undulating banks, although in later years the conventional straight banks have been used in new streams laid out.
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