Giant Stride

Angela Salisbury, archivist of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, selected this photograph of the Giant Stride at Logan Park in Minneapolis.

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Background

This photograph of children posing and playing on park playground equipment was taken in Logan Park in the early 1900s. The 1906 Annual Report of the Board of Park Commissioners described the newly installed playground apparatus as “Six traveling rings, four pair swinging rings, four climbing poles, two climbing ropes, four incline sliding poles, two horizontal bars, one horizontal ladder, four include ladders and one giant stride.”

Significance

Logan Park was one of the first three parks acquired by the Board of Park Commissioners when it was created in 1883. It was then one of the first two parks in Minneapolis to have playground equipment installed in 1906. The playgrounds were immensely popular, and in June of that year, Clifford Booth, Physical Director of the Minneapolis YMCA, wrote to the Board of Park Commissioners and Superintendent Theodore Wirth and offered to provide supervision and instruction to the children on the playgrounds, thus establishing the first recreational program in Minneapolis parks. In doing so, Minneapolis joined the recreation movement that was taking shape across the county, and which has become a focus of the park board's mission over the past 100 years.

This image represents the role of parks and recreation in the everyday life of the people of Minneapolis. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board works every day to preserve, protect, and maintain parks and recreational opportunities for current and future generations.

Why I Chose This

I love the faces on the children in this photograph. Play is such serious business! What is wonderful about this image is how it captures a moment in time so beautifully -- children of all ages in their period-specific dress, going about their day in the park. Minneapolis in the early 1900s was a booming, growing city and children were in need of dedicated play spaces, the same as adults. There is also something timeless about children’s excitement and bustle over newly installed playground equipment, or maybe the curiosity of a photographer, that I find charming.


About the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) is an independently elected, semi-autonomous body responsible for governing, maintaining and developing the Minneapolis Park System. The 6,790-acre system consists of local and regional parks, playgrounds, golf courses, gardens, biking and walking paths, nature sanctuaries, lakes and a 55-mile parkway system. Minneapolis parks encompass the city's defining lakes and the river banks at the core of the city's development. Acquired by purchase and donation, the parks include features of astonishing beauty, historical significance and ecological wonder, all within a thriving urban setting.

Browse the MPRB's collection on MDL.


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