Pleasure Drive Association." Put in dollars and cents, the increase is from $1,600,000 to $2,400,000 and the annual return at the present rate of taxation is from $24,000 to $36,000 annually. This is truly an enormous return for the investment. In excess of the interest on the bonds, the annual tax levy to meet the bonds at maturity and the annual charge for maintenance, the city is deriving an income of many thousands of dollars.

One illustration of the increase in value due to park work will be given. In 1905 we purchased about twenty acres for an addition to Tenney Park for $8,500. To obtain money to fill the remainder we platted about one-sixth of the tract along one side into twenty lots, which brought us $20,000 after they had been filled by us at a cost of less than $150 per lot. Our experience has amply verified the general proposition upon which the promoters of parks have ever insisted, that no city can make an investment which will yield longer or surer returns than an investment in parks and driveways.

RECREATION DEVELOPMENTS IN CHICAGO PARKS

BY GRAHAM ROMEYN TAYLOR,

Of "The Survey" Staff; Secretary Playground Association of Chicago.

The large measure of national attention which has been directed toward Chicago's parks during the last half-dozen years testifies to the significance of the new type which that city has recently developed. The Chicago small park recreation centers, for which thus far about $10,000,000 have been spent or voted, have established a new standard in public provision for recreation. They register the high-water mark in two tides which have been rising during the last two decades-the playground movement and the movement to secure from city parks not only landscape beauty, but a larger human service. They stand for the growing recognition that recreation facilities for the whole family and all the members of the community are just as much needed as the children's playgrounds which are now accepted necessities.

Although the small park recreation centers had already become widely known, their fame was most effectively spread throughout the country in 1907 by the first convention of the Playground Association of America. This gathering was held in Chicago to enable the delegates to observe at first hand the operation of the recreation centers. President Roosevelt in February of that year wrote a letter urging all of our larger municipalities to send representatives to gain the inspiration of the convention and "to see the magnificent system that Chicago has erected in its South Park section, one of the most notable civic achievements of any American city." Among the two hundred delegates were a large number who had been appointed by the mayors of their respective cities. Such official representatives, on returning from the convention, submitted reports in which prominent place was given to descriptions and photographs of Chicago's South Park recreation centers. Through these reports, and the information and enthusiasm disseminated by all who attended the convention, as well as through the constant stream of visitors from all parts of the country, the Chicago facilities for play and recreation may be said to have contributed in no small degree to the

rapid progress of the recreation movement throughout America during the last three years.

The principal purpose of this article, in line with the general title of this volume, is to describe these unique recreation facilities and the extent to which they have been provided for the whole city and to suggest something of their significance. It is also proposed to outline in a few words the city's earlier park history, tell briefly of the movement for an outer parkway belt, and touch upon two recent developments having special recreational interestthe play festivals which bring together young and old of all nationalities, and the Saturday afternoon walks which are leading many people of the city center to a more intimate appreciation of the beautiful regions surrounding Chicago, especially those included in the proposed outer parkway belt of meadow and woodland.

Chicago had been an incorporated city but two years when, in 1839, the first park was established. It occupied the half-block on the lake front where the public library now stands and was named Dearborn Park. From 1839 to 1869 extension was gradual. Seven more were established, among them Union Park, given to the city in 1854, which became the city's principal park. Thirty-four small pieces of land, mostly at street intersections, were added as "beauty spots" before 1870. A tract of land along the lake shore on the north side was urged as a park site in 1860. Public funds were appropriated to improve it in 1864 and the name "Lincoln❞ was given to it in 1865.

The establishment of Lincoln Park, however, should be considered as part of a movement which made 1869 a memorable year in Chicago's park history. This movement, which crystallized that year in legislation, was for a chain of parks and connecting boulevards starting at Lincoln Park and including Humboldt, Garfield, Douglas, Washington and Jackson parks. These large parks, varying in size from 182 to 542 acres, put Chicago well toward the front among American cities, so that in 1880 it ranked second in park area.

The city's contentment with this proud showing lulled it to comparative inactivity, so far as park extension was concerned. From 1880 to 1903 population increased 272.40 per cent., while park area increased only 58.70 per cent. Chicago then had fallen to seventh among American cities in respect to total park area; but

measured by the test of number of inhabitants to each acre of park space, it had dropped to nineteenth place.

The growth of population, moreover, involved such crowding in the "river wards" that large numbers of people were massed in regions little served by the chain of large parks. Nearly a million people lived more than a mile from any one of them in 1904. Eleven wards, with a population of 425,000, contained 1814 acres of park space-234 people to the acre. The remaining twenty-three wards, with a population of over a million, contained only 228 acres -4720 people to each acre of park space.

As this condition became more and more acute, the great need for children's playgrounds was increasingly urged by those in a position to know the effects of the congestion upon the child life of the community. The residents of social settlements could count the human cost, as few others could, of the failure to provide opportunities for wholesome play. They could not rest without doing something, however little, to meet the problem. Accordingly, in 1893, the first playground was opened by Hull House on land given by Mr. William Kent. Within the next few years Northwestern University Settlement, the University of Chicago Settlement and Chicago Commons opened small playgrounds for the children of their neighborhoods. In 1897 the first school playground was opened in the yard of the Washington school by the West Side district of the Associated Charities.

The beginnings of the playground movement in Chicago were soon followed by municipal action. In 1898 the first public funds, $1000, were appropriated by the city council. Individuals subscribed $750 additional. Six schoolyards, their use granted by the Board of Education, were maintained as equipped and supervised playgrounds under the direction of the Vacation School Committee of the Women's Clubs.

The next step was the organization, in 1899, of the Special Park Commission. This came as the result of a resolution passed by the city council at the suggestion of the Municipal Science Club, a group of men which included several social settlement residents. The commission was composed partly of aldermen and partly of

Viewing the movement for public recreation in its large signficance, the fact is interesting that the donor of the first children's playground in Chicago is also the donor of a natonal park-the Muir Woods, near San Francisco.

private citizens. Upon it have served members of the older park commissions created by the legislation of 1869.

To understand the park development of the past decade, it is necessary to make clear the powers and limitations of these older park commissions. As a result of the legislation of 1869, the South, West, and Lincoln Park commissions came into being. Each serves one of the three "sides" of Chicago, the divisions naturally made by the Chicago River and its north and south branches. The South Park Commission consists of five members appointed by the judges of the circuit court; the West and Lincoln Park commissions each consist of seven members appointed by the governor with consent of the state senate. Each commission has power independently of the municipal government to issue bonds not to exceed five per cent. of the assessed valuation of the property in its territory, and also to levy taxes on this property. Under the legislation governing them, they had no authority to establish and maintain playgrounds.

The Special Park Commission, securing its funds from the general corporate funds of the city, undertook at once to establish small playgrounds in the crowded districts. Five were at once started and the system has grown to include "ourteen, with two bathing beaches on the Lake Michigan shore. To this commission. were turned over the small playgrounds originally conducted by the social settlements.

The work of the Special Park Commission has involved more than the establishment and maintenance of small playgrounds. It made a comprehensive study and report of the park and playground needs of the city, including the desirability of securing an outer parkway system.

Finding that adequate funds were not available for it to meet the urgent need for small parks and playgrounds in the congested districts, it started a movement to secure an enlargement of the powers of the older park commissions. To help these commissions the Special Park Commission made a study of conditions and recommended sites for small parks in each of the three sections of the city.

Following out this movement the three older commissions *This is not wholly correct, as a few small outlying areas are under the control of minor commissions organized under the same statutes. Metropolitan Park Report, 1904.