3954 Bryant Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55409, USA

3954 Bryant Ave S, Minneapolis, MN, USA

3954 Bryant Ave S Home History
Lowell Lamoreaux, 1910

This house, a Colonial-Mission Revival blend, was the longtime home and office of Theodore Wirth. Born in Switzerland in 1863, Wirth immigrated to the United
States in 1888 and later became superintendent of parks in Hart- ford, CT. Recruited by Charles Loring, Wirth agreed to come to Minneapolis to head its park system in 1906, but only if the park board would build a residence for him and his family-evidence that executive perks have been around for a long time. The house, built on a portion of William King's old Lyndale Farm, wasn't completed until 1910, and Wirth lived here for the next 36 years.

During Wirth's long tenure in Minneapolis, he supervised dredging and shoreline improvements at city lakes, designed the Lyndale Rose Garden, and added more than 3,000 acres to the city's park system. After his retirement, he wrote a history of the Minneapolis parks. Wirth moved to California in 1946 and died there three years later. He and his wife are buried at nearby Lake- wood Cemetery. Still owned by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Citation: Millett, Larry. AIA Guide to the Minneapolis Lake District. Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009.

Theodore Wirth House-Administration Building - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

Summary

The Theodore Wirth House/Administration Building is significant under Criterion B for its associations with Theodore Wirth, superintendent of the Minneapolis Park system between 1906 and 1935 and superintendent emeritus until 1946. Wirth (1863-1949) gained national recognition for his work in the design, execution, and expansion of many aspects of the extensive Minneapolis Park system and for his role in establishing and fostering several national organizations of park professionals. For these reasons, he made major contributions to the area of landscape architecture. Designed by local Minneapolis architect Lowell A. Lamoreaux of the firm of Long, Lamoreaux and Long, this building served both as Wirth’s home from the time of its construction in 1910 until 1946 and as on-site administrative offices for Wirth and members of staff. While the entire park system itself can be associated with Wirth and his career, this building and the surrounding site, which are situated in Lyndale Farmstead, one of those parks, and have been only minimally changed, provide the most tangible evidence of how he lived and worked during his long and distinguished career. The building, which is of state wide significance, is also part of the local contexts “Civic: Parks” and “South Minneapolis” and the statewide context “Urban Centers: 1870-1940.

The Site
The Lyndale Farmstead, the park that contains the Wirth House/Administration Building, was originally part of the estate of William S. King, one of the founding members of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners. Lyndale Farmstead extends between 38th Street West on the north, Bryant Avenue South on the east, 40th Street West on the south, and Kings Highway on the west. The section north of the 39th Street that contained King’s barns as well as the original house (1870) was acquired by the park board in 1899 for the storage of park equipment. The southern section was acquired in 1908. The site may be seen as the symbolic heart of the Minneapolis park system. The romantically landscaped Lakewood Cemetery, founded in 1871 over ten years prior to the establishment of the park system by many of the same people, is immediately to the west. Lyndale Park with its famous rose garden designed by Theodore Wirth, located to the northeast of Lake Harriet, is to the southwest. This provides the link to the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds that Wirth did so much to refine and foster.

The Building
Even though Wirth relocated to Minneapolis in 1906 on the condition that he be provided with a residence, similar to the residence he enjoyed in Hartford, Connecticut, the house/administration building was not constructed until 1910. Wirth claimed to have devised the original plan, which was rejected by his wife because it was all windows. Instead, she came up with something more to her liking. In any case, the architect Lowell A. Lamoreaux of the Minneapolis firm of Long, Lamoreaux and Long was responsible for the final design, presumably taking the needs and desires of the Wirth’s into account.’ Lamoreaux’s previous designs for the park system included the design of service buildings at Lyndale Farmstead (1908); a sketch for Gateway Park (1908); the park building at Powderhorn Park (1908); and the design of the pavilion at Camden (Webber) Park (1908).

Lowell A. Lamoreaux (1861-1922), a resident of the Prospect Park neighborhood of Minneapolis, designed for himself one of the very first houses constructed in that section shortly after his graduation from the University of Minnesota in 1887. He then worked for Cass Gilbert and James Knox Taylor (Gilbert and Taylor) in Saint Paul for a short time. In association with James MacLeod in the late 1890s, Lamoreaux designed many notable residences for wealthy clients in the Kenwood, Linden Hills, Lowry Hill, and Whittier sections of Minneapolis, as well as other houses in Prospect Park. He practiced by himself between 1900 and 1908, then joined the firm of Long and Long, successor firm to Long and Kees. When he became a partner in 1909, the firm became Long, Lamoreaux, and Long. With MacLeod and in solo practice, Lamoreaux honed his skills as a designer of private residences. Stylistically they reflect a variety of trends including the Shingle Style, Colonial Revival, and Swiss Chalet. Characteristics of both the Colonial Revival and Swiss Chalet styles are evident in Lamoreaux’s design for the Wirth House/Administration Building.

Long, Lamoreaux, and Long achieved success in the design of large institutional and commercial buildings in Minneapolis, including the Dyckman, Radisson, and Curtis Hotels, the Central Y.M.C.A., the Syndicate Building, the Palace Building, the Swedish and Eitel Hospitals, and the Hill and Boyd Transfer Company Warehouse.

For the Wirths, Lamoreaux had the challenge of designing a building that served both as a residence and as a semi-public work space that was accessible from both inside and outside, yet removed enough not to intrude on the activities of the household. His task was made easier in part by the sloping site that allowed for the creation of an above-ground basement to house the administration functions. In addition, the site allowed ample light and a view of the parklands to the landscape architects, engineers, and Wirth himself, as they worked in the drafting room and the adjacent office area.

In the 1910 annual report on Lyndale Farmstead, Wirth noted:
The principal improvement carried out is the new Administration Building erected on a small wooded hill near the comer of Fortieth street and Bryant Avenue. The building serves as the residence of the Superintendent, with an attached office and drafting room. The residence part provides twelve rooms. The offices are on a level with the basement and have a separate entrance from the north side. The heating plant is in a subbasement located under the office. The house being located on a hillside, plenty of light and air have been secured for the basement. The building is made of solid concrete to the first floor, and wood frame with rough cast cement finish from there. This residence makes it possible for your Superintendent to keep in closest touch with the administration plant and the work directed from there with the least loss of time, while the facilities of the offices will enable him to do a large amount of clerical and engineering work before and after the routine work of the day. The constant interruptions unavoidably encountered at the general office at all times, make it almost impossible to do justice to the large amount of preparatory work which your Superintendent should attend to.

A photograph of the newly completed house was taken from the north, showing the entrance to the residence and the basement office facilities. The building was completely wired for electricity. Shortly after the Wirth family moved in, Wirth requested permission to keep a cow, a pony, and some chickens in one of the buildings at the Lyndale Farmstead for the use of the family. His request was approved in March. ^ From his home and office in the Lyndale Farmstead, Wirth oversaw the construction and expansion of the Minneapolis Park system. In 1945, he wrote:

In addition to serving as the Superintendent’s residence, the building also contains office accommodations which through the many ensuing years of extensive expansion and construction, were much used by the engineering division, since such facilities in the main office at City Hall were sadly inadequate.''

Establishment of Minneapolis Parks from 1883 to 1905
Minneapolis had been slow to establish public parks. Colonel William S. King had offered to sell part of his farm near Lake Harriet to the city for a park in 1870 (a portion of this became part of Lyndale Farmstead), but the city was unwilling to spend the money. By the early 1880s King and George A. Pillsbury, among others, had taken over leadership of the Minneapolis Board of Trade, a commercial and civic group, that began to agitate for a board of park commissioners that would be separate from city government. The state legislature authorized a referendum to create a new entity that would have the authority to obtain land for park development and to issue bonds and levy a citywide tax for park purposes. Shortly after the board was established in 1883, it hired H. W. S. Cleveland, a noted landscape architect and contemporary of Frederick Law Olmsted, to plan a system of parks throughout the city. Cleveland laid out “in convincing and earnest language the many priceless natural and scenic attractions that were still unspoiled within the city limits, the acquisition of which he strongly advocated for park and parkway purposes.

Cleveland looked at the river banks, Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Creek, and the areas around the existing lakes, and envisioned a system that would be linked by scenic landscaped parkways modeled after examples developed by Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in Brooklyn, New York, and elsewhere. The whole linked system was later christened the Grand Rounds and continued to be developed well into the twentieth century. Within the first two years, the board of park commissioners had acquired land for Central (later Loring) Park and twenty acres on the west bank of the Mississippi for Riverside Park. James Stinson donated land for the boulevard subsequently named after him in 1885, and portions of Hennepin Avenue and Lyndale Avenue North were landscaped and designated as boulevards. Park and parkway work was begun around Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, and Lake of the Isles and on the connections between them. The land for the creation of Minnehaha Park was purchased in 1887. Landowners along the banks of Minnehaha Creek donated land along the banks in 1889 and 1890, so a parkway could be created that linked Lake Harriet to Minnehaha Falls. Land for Columbia Park in north Minneapolis, was purchased in 1892.

Much of this work was implemented under the direction of the first full-time superintendent, William Morse Berry, who had been hired by board president Charles Loring in 1885. At that time. Berry had spent ten years implementing Olmsted’s plans for the South Park System in Chicago. He proved equally adept at putting Cleveland’s ideas to work in Minneapolis: “Fully sympathizing with the views and tastes of Mr. Cleveland, Mr. Berry rapidly produced admirable results at very moderate cost to this city.”'^ The fame of the park system was well established when the second annual conference of the Park and Outdoor Art Association was held in Minneapolis in 1898.'^ After Cleveland retired to Chicago in 1895, the board hired Boston landscape architect Warren Manning in 1899 to review the Minneapolis park system and make recommendations for further improvements. In his report, issued in January 1900, he called “for the enlargement of the system along lines previously suggested by Professor Cleveland, for still further extension beyond that proposed enlargement.” Among his recommendations were the acquisition and the extension of parkways around Lake Calhoun and Cedar Lake, as well as the purchase of Lake Amelia (Nokomis) and Rice (Hiawatha) Lake. Because of an economic slowdown, this expansion campaign could not be put into place until after Berry’s retirement in late 1905.

Theodore Wirth: Background, Early Career, and Arrival in Minneapolis
Berry was succeeded by Theodore Wirth, who became the single most important professional figure in the realization of the Minneapolis Park system. Wirth, born in 1863 in Winterthur, Switzerland, graduated from the equivalent of high school there. Because he wanted to become a gardener, he served a three-year apprenticeship with a private Swiss firm. Then he took a six-month engineering course at the Technikon in Winterthur. While working for one of the foremost landscape gardeners in Switzerland, he helped with the planning and execution of the grounds of the National Exhibition in Zurich in 1883. Then he spent two and a half years in London and one and a half years in Paris, furthering his experience in landscape work. Seeking further opportunities, he immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York, on April 15, 1888. Shortly after his arrival he was hired as a gardener in the New York City Park Department, working in Central Park under Superintendent Samuel Parsons. Moving into the field of construction, he worked under J. F. Huss, director of construction; and became construction foreman, working on Momingside Park. He was fired in 1891 after three years because of a change in the city administration and local politics. Going into business for himself, he worked on private estates and cemetery landscape plans in New Jersey, Connecticut, along the Hudson, and on Long Island, New York. He also worked for a time on the construction of the Niagara Falls Park, a design of the Olmsted firm. While working on Long Island, he met F. G. Mense, superintendent of the George W. Perkins estate at Glen Cove. On June 17, 1895, Wirth married Leonie A. Mense. The following spring Wirth was appointed superintendent to the newly created Hartford, Conn, park commission, where he carried out the plans of landscape architects Olmsted and Eliot. ^‘ Among Wirth’s accomplishments in Hartford was the design and construction in 1903 of Elizabeth Park that contained the first municipal rose garden in the United States.

After Berry announced he would retire at the end of 1905, Charles Loring, still a member ofthe board of park commissioners, headed the committee that looked for a replacement. He invited Theodore Wirth to visit the city in June 1905, then offered him the position of superintendent. In his later years Wirth liked to recount his reaction:

When in 1905, Mr. C. M. Loring invited me to pay him a visit to consider the acceptance of my present position, I was at first disinclined to accept. It rained every day during my stay and everything looked uninviting except the people whom I met, and who were very kind to me. When I left here, I had in mind to reject the position offered, but on my long Journey home, however, I constantly saw before me those lakes, the river gorge, Minnehaha Creek, the falls and glen, and the many other natural attractions and the possibilities for their betterment in the public service, new acquisitions, new creations, work among friendly people for a well-organized, non-political Board of Park Commissioners, By the time I reached home, I had gained a strong desire to accept It was the opportunity for new work that attracted me mostly.^

Wirth sent a letter to Loring on July 4, 1905, stating that he would come to Minneapolis if he could be assured of certain conditions of employment, including a residence similar to that he had occupied in Hartford. Loring met his conditions, and on September 5, Wirth responded: “I have fought my battle of heart and mind and have come out of it, as I believe, victorious. Its gives me pleasure to inform you that I will come to Minneapolis at the time and under the conditions stated to you in my letter of proposal of last July I have come to the conclusion that I must follow the dictates of my ambition to enter a larger field of work, and that as a man I must stand by my proposition, which was accepted by you.

Soon thereafter it was reported in the local press that Wirth had resigned his position in Hartford and would be named superintendent of parks in Minneapolis. The Journal noted his achievements in Hartford, and commented approvingly; “Aside from being exceedingly well versed in the technical branch of his profession [he] is a man of progressive ideals. This is well attested by his annual reports and better still by his success at Hartford.”^^ Further correspondence with Loring discussed various details and the need for Wirth to finish up in Hartford.^^

Wirth assumed his new duties as superintendent on January 10, 1906; initially he spent time with Berry, learning the details of the system. Christian Bossen, Wirth’s clerk in Hartford, accompanied him to Minneapolis to serve in a similar position. ^^ Apparently Leonie Wirth and their three sons, Theodore Rudolph, Conrad, and Walter, did not join Theodore Wirth until sometime in the spring. ^* The family moved into a rented house at 3935 Grand Avenue South. ^

Less than a month on the job, Wirth issued his first report to the board of park commissioners in which he recommended more playground and recreation spaces in the parks; removal of fences and unnecessary signs; systematic improvement of street trees on public thoroughfares; special forestry work in the parks; an enlarged nursery for the cultivation of planting materials; a relocated menagerie or none at all; establishment of a repair shop; a revised accounting system; and business methods to be followed in every department.^®

Wirth sent his impressions of Minneapolis and its parks to the president of the board of park commissioners in Hartford a few days later:
It has been my good fortune to make in the short time of my sojourn here many friends, especially so amongst the children. Some of the parks well adapted for winter sport, such as sleighing and skiing on hillsides, etc., have in the past, for no good reason, been denied for such purposes, and my first step was to throw them open to the children and aid them wherever I could to get all the sport they want, and naturally those children are happy and likewise their parents... Minneapolis has the possibilities for one of the finest park systems in the country. The system in regard to the proper and equal distribution of parks all over the city is well conceived, and the opportunities offered by natural attractive sceneries have been well taken advantage of. Generally speaking, the entire system is however far from developed, and therein lies the attraction which brought me here.

My Commissioners are very anxious, now as the acquisition of necessary park lands is about completed, to begin improvements along permanent and modem lines, and I feel convinced that I will have the full support of the Board in my endeavors to promote the development of the parks and parkways and to make them as useful as possible to the public at large I believe, however, that the time is coming when Minneapolis can in every respect occupy its proper place in this noble work amongst the many rival cities of this broad land of ours, and that as a fast growing Western City it will improve in park development as fast as any other city of the States.

In the fall of 1906, the Journal published an editorial praising Wirth and his work on the parks:
The evidences that the park system, is receiving scientific treatment at the hands of the new superintendent multiply. The parks were never so well kept as they have been during the past summer.... In matters of detail Mr. Wirth has shown himself a master. He has not yet had the funds to undertake any extensive works of improvement, but if mastery of detail is any guarantee of success in large affairs, the superintendent will make good.

Minneapolis Parks under Wirth
Construction and Expansion When Wirth arrived in Minneapolis, the park board had about 1,800 acres of land under its jurisdiction. By the time he retired in 1935, the number of acres had grown to about 5,200. But his initial goal was to improve what already existed. In 1907, responding to the tremendous interest in enhancing the Chain of Lakes, Wirth began dredging projects, shoreline building and rebuilding, and the excavation of channels between the lakes. When the channel between Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles was completed in 1911, the event was marked by a weeklong celebration. ^^ On a smaller scale, Wirth laid out and planted the country’s second rose garden in a public park, in this case Lyndale Park.

While initial park development had been focused on the southwestern part of the city, one of Wirth’s goals was to extend the Grand Rounds northward through acquisition of land south and west of Cedar Lake, the construction of Cedar Lake Boulevard, and the creation of Glenwood Parkway and Glenwood-Camden Parkway. The latter was christened Victory Memorial Drive in 1919, in honor of those who had died in World War I. Glenwood Park was enlarged from its original 60 acres to 681 acres in several phases between 1907 and 1917. The park contained the city’s first municipal golf course, complete with a club house, called the Chalet, designed by Magney and Tusler and built in 1922. Wirth credited the inspiration for the design to the small model of a Swiss chalet that he and his wife had purchased in Switzerland on their honeymoon in 1895. ^^ Saint Anthony Boulevard extending from Columbia Park was officially opened in 1924.

In the southern part of Minneapolis, the swamplands of Lake Amelia and Rice Lake were acquired and transformed into Lake Nokomis and Lake Hiawatha through dredging and landscaping. Minnehaha Parkway was paved and developed, and work continued at Minnehaha Park. Work continued on the park around Lake Powderhorn and on the lake itself into the 1920s.

Extending the scope of park operations even further, Wirth championed and planned the acquisition, operation, and development of the Municipal Airport (later World-Chamberlain Field).^

Recreation and Activities Wirth has been called the “father of the Minneapolis recreation system.” One of his first actions was to remove signs and allow children to play on the grass in the parks, as has been cited above. During 1906 gymnastic apparatus was installed at Riverside Park and Logan Park, swings and a merry-go-round at Minnehaha Park, and merry-go-rounds at Van Cleve Park and Fairview Park. Playgrounds were established in parks throughout the city, and separate play fields were also created, many of them enabled by the Elwell Law of 1911. The law allowed for the issuance of bonds for park and playground acquisitions with the bonding secured in part by assessments against the affected districts. Wirth’s arrival in Minneapolis coincided with the formation of the Playground Association of America, later the National Recreation Association. The Parade, adjacent to Central (later Loring) Park, was improved as a citywide athletic field which made possible the first city-wide athletic meet in 1909. The first director of recreation, who developed a year-round program, was employed in 1913. Among the activities sponsored by the board’s recreation division were baseball, football, golf, ice hockey, skiing, canoeing, sailing, swimming, hiking, festivals and exhibits, pageants, concerts, and community sings. All reinforced Wirth’s motto that “parks are for people.

After the completion of the Wirth House and Administration Building in the fall of 1910, Wirth oversaw and planned the work of the park system from this location at the southwest comer of Lyndale Farmstead. He had a private office at the northwest comer of the basement immediately adjacent to the drafting room for the landscape architects, planners, and engineers under his supervision. This location also gave him ready access to the system’s maintenance and horticultural operations that were located at the north end of Lyndale Farmstead. Various plans for Lyndale Farmstead itself were published in the board’s annual reports. ^^ The presence of a playground and an athletic field to the west and to the northeast of the building gave him ample opportunity to see the children of Minneapolis enjoying the park.

When Wirth retired on November 30, 1935, he was given the title of Superintendent Emeritus, and he and his wife were allowed to stay in the residence. As noted by members of the standing committee on finance; “Fortunately for this Board, Mr. Wirth’s heart and soul is in park work; it has always been his hobby as well as his profession. It can be seen from the foregoing that relieved of his responsibilities as active Superintendent and supplied with the necessary facilities, he will be enabled to carry on in a leisurely fashion such studies for the benefit of this Board and for the park movement in general.”'*® In fact Wirth devoted much of his time to writing his definitive history and study, Minneapolis Park System, 1883-1944. ^

Leonie Wirth died on February 9, 1940, and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery. Later that year, Theodore Wirth was profiled by Vivian Thorp in the Minneapolis Times Tribune. She commented:

Theodore Wirth still lives in the lovely home on park board property ... and it is still the heart of the park system---- It is very nice to think of Theodore Wirth sitting there on his hill, looking back on those full years of fine work for us all; looking out on children and grown-ups made happier and healthier through his efforts, and looking forward to a still greater Minneapolis with more and more playgrounds and growing years of beauty.'

About two years later he married his sister-in-law Juliette, who had never married and had lived with the Wirth family in Minneapolis for many years. Succumbing to the demands of health, Mr. and Mrs. Wirth moved out of the residence on November 1, 1946.

The Board thought it desirable that the building be retained for use as the Superintendent’s Residence, so occupancy was offered to Charles Doel, who was then in that position."*^ Doel made a number of changes in the house to give it a more “colonial” appearance, most of which have been subsequently removed or reversed. These included changing window sash, adding exterior window shutters, modifying the front steps, and painting the interior woodwork."*^ The building remained in use as the Superintendent’s Residence until 1996. It was converted to office use in 1997 and leased to the Minnesota Recreation and Park Association.

National Connections and Honors

Throughout his long career, Wirth fostered professionalism in various aspects of the park planning field as an active, and sometimes founding, member of numerous national organizations. These connections burnished his reputation and brought him many honors. The first of these organizations was the New England Association of Park Superintendents, founded in 1898. By 1904 its scope had expanded, and it was renamed the American Association of Park Superintendents. Wirth proudly hosted the group at its annual conference in Minneapolis in 1908.'*'^ The organization continued to grow, and in 1921 was renamed the American Institute of Park Executives and the American Park Society. Wirth was elected president of the organization in 1922 which presented him a gold medal in 1935. It established the quarterly publication Parks and Recreation in 1917, expanded to a bimonthly publication in 1921 and a monthly in 1930. This organization eventually merged with others to form the National Recreation and Park Association. Wirth was inducted into the organization’s hall of fame in 1988, the first year such an honor was established.'^

Wirth’s horticultural interests were reflected in the founding of the Twin City Florists’ and Gardeners’ Club and the Minnesota State Florists’ Association. He was elected president of the Society of American Florists and Ornamental Horticulturists in 1913 when it held its annual meeting in Minneapolis. The society awarded Wirth its gold medal for his service to horticulture in 1931.'

In 1921 Wirth was one of the founders of the National Conference of State Parks, along with Stephen T. Mather, director of the National Park Service; Horace Albright, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park; and John Barton Payne, Secretary of the Interior. The group honored Wirth at a dinner in 1930.'^^ In 1933 the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society presented Wirth its Cornelius Amory Pugsley medal which was inscribed: “Theodore Wirth who developed the municipal park system of Minneapolis into one of the chief recreation centers of the Northwest.”

Other medals and honors followed during his retirement years. The city of Hartford and the American Rose Society presented him medals in 1938 in recognition of the establishment of the first municipal rose garden in Elizabeth Park.^' That year Glenwood Park was renamed Theodore Wirth Park in recognition of his extensive contributions to the design of that park.^^ In 1940 the Inter-Racial Council of Minneapolis awarded Wirth its civic service honor medal because “he has done more than any other individual to provide and establish in our city a growing system of parks and parkways which affords all people, rich and poor, convenient and wholesome places of rest and outdoor recreation; his courage and persistence, vision and wisdom, have gained for Minneapolis a world-wide reputation as a beautiful and delightful place in which to live; his contribution has been to all citizens, is typical of the unselfish spirit of democracy, and is a lasting monument to the American way of life.”^^ The George Robert White Medal of Honor of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society was given to Wirth in 1946.

When Wirth announced his forthcoming move to California in October 1946, he was honored at two testimonial dinners. The first was held at the recently completed Calhoun Beach Club, with various politicians and members of civic organizations in attendance. The second hosted by members of the park board and park department heads was held at the golf chalet in Theodore Wirth Park. Wirth returned the following summer for the dedication of the Peavey fountain in the rose garden at Lyndale Park. When asked how he liked California, he replied, “Very well, but there is nothing like this out there.”

Wirth died in La Jolla, California, on January 29, 1949. Funeral services were held on February 4, at Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, just west of the building where he lived and worked so many years, and he was buried next to Leonie Wirth. The park board designated that day as “Theodore Wirth Day” and attended the funeral as a group. It adopted a resolution that stated “His life’s work, always in harmony with nature, is finished, but those things of lasting beauty and benefit which our citizens will continue to enjoy are memorials in his honor that will live on with Minneapolis for years to come.”^^ Tributes were paid to Wirth from around the country. Robert T. Everly, president ofthe American Institute of Park Executives wrote:

The death of Theodore Wirth brings a sense of deep loss to every one of the thousands of men and women who lead in the supervision and operation of the park and recreation systems of this country. During his many years of service to his own city of Minneapolis he shared generously with colleagues throughout America his boundless energy and broad vision of the place of public park and recreation agencies in the national economy and public welfare.... We, his close friend’s fellow-workers, recognize in his going that the whole country has lost a true public servant and a giant among men.

His son Conrad Wirth was particularly touched by the letter he received from his father’s contemporary and fellow landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957), in which the younger Olmsted compared Theodore Wirth to his father:

I think he and my father had very much in common and which was, I believe, largely responsible for the great accomplishments of both of them in park work. It is something to which my attention has been strongly drawn of late ... and something of much more profound importance in park work than is generally recognized. At bottom, it depends on a deep-seated, constant and compelling interest in and sympathy with, the people using the parks—on finding one’s chief satisfaction in appreciative friendly observation and study of the ways in which those people actually use, and derive pleasure and benefit from any give park, and in helping guiding them by every available means to get the best values from their use of it, in the long run, that are made possible by the inherent characteristics of that particular park ^by the widely various personal characteristics of the people themselves.

Unless a park man’s interest in, and use of, the techniques of designing, constructing, and operating parks are dominated and motivated by such a fundamental and absorbing interest in the people who use the parks and in all the details of how they use them and how they can be induced to use them with greater benefit to themselves in the long run—as was the case with my father and yours—more technical skill in any or all of those phases of park work tends to become academic and sterile, except so far as that man is used as a subordinate technician-assistant by a master-mind who has that broader human interest in the people as such, and can to some degree inspire his assistants with that same absorbing interest in them. Isn’t that the most important thing that park men ought to learn from your father’s life work and that of my father? ^

Wirth’s Legacy
Wirth’s legacy was not only in the park systems and organizations he planned, executed, and fostered, but also in the people he influenced. The first of these was Christian A. Bossen, who had been his clerk in Hartford and became his assistant in Minneapolis. Bossen succeeded Wirth as superintendent, serving in the position until 1945. The regional athletic field at 28th Avenue South and 56th Street East, as well as a pathway in the bird sanctuary in Lyndale Park were named in Bossen’s honor.

Another lasting legacy were the members of the Wirth family who followed in Theodore Wirth’s footsteps. Two of his sons, Conrad and Walter, became “park men.” They, along with their older brother Theodore Rudolph who went into the U.S. Navy, grew up in the house at Lyndale Farmstead. Conrad remembered the house as being on the outskirts of the city and described crossing fields to go to school. He and Walter learned gardening from their mother. His father gave him his first paid experience, trimming trees in the Minneapolis parks. Conrad, after studying landscape architecture at the University of Massachusetts and practicing in private firms, went on to join the National Park Service, where he had a long and illustrious career. He served as director between 1951 and 1964. Walter, after working in private practice joined the park system in Tulsa, Oklahoma; then became assistant superintendent and superintendent in New Haven, Connecticut; director of the Pennsylvania state parks; and superintendent of the Salem, Oregon, regional parks. ^* Conrad’s son, Theodore J., followed in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, becoming a landscape architect in his own right and designing parks both in the United States and abroad. Like their father, Conrad and Walter both received the Pugsley medal of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society and American Institute of Park Executive awards. Conrad and Theodore J. Wirth were named fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and Theodore J. also served a term as president. Also like his father, Conrad was named to the Hall of Fame of the National Recreation and Park Association.

Conclusion
The Theodore Wirth House/Administration Building stands today as the most significant building associated with the nationally renowned landscape architect and long-time superintendent of Minneapolis parks. Not only was it his home for thirty-six years (1910-1946), it also served as the workplace where he designed and supervised the expansion and execution of the city’s widely acclaimed park system. For its associations with Wirth and his major contributions to the area of landscape architecture, the Theodore Wirth House/Administration Building is eligible for the National Register under Criterion B.