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Preservation Case Study: Riverview Park In the early years of the twentieth century, Wilson Boyd Pettibone, a lumber magnate and philanthropist, began buying land for a park in Hannibal, Missouri. The thriving port on the Mississippi River was famous as the birthplace of Samuel Clemens—better known as Mark Twain—as well as a hub for river and railroad shipping. Pettibone envisioned a time when a park on the limestone bluffs above the river would offer a peaceful retreat for his growing community. Pettibone acquired 200 acres and then brought in Ossian Cole Simonds (1855–1931), a highly regarded landscape gardener whose work at Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery in the 1880s won him international renown. For Pettibone’s new park, Simonds designed a system of winding carriage paths that took visitors through scenic vantage points, from a central bluff overlooking the Mississippi to hollows planted with oaks, maples, and flowering shrubs. Riverview Park opened in 1909. In his deed of gift to the city, Pettibone forbade permanent structures, stipulating that the property be used solely as a “free city public park for the benefit and enjoyment of the inhabitants.” In this vision, Simonds was a kindred spirit. “[T]he main purpose of a park is to preserve, restore, develop, and make accessible natural scenery,” Simonds wrote in his 1920 book, Landscape-Gardening, which has been reprinted by LALH. During the next two decades Pettibone added another 200 acres, and Simonds returned to Hannibal to create a setting for a statue of Clemens and to lay out a new entrance drive. Over the course of the park’s history, it has been managed largely according to its founder’s wishes, although construction of a bridge across the Mississippi in the late 1990s removed 17 acres and altered views from the park’s south end. Traffic through Riverview has increased, as residents in this town of 18,000 often seek out the park for quiet lunches, walks, and drives, and hundreds of tourists come to visit the Clemens statue each year. But not all changes have been negative. Simonds’s trees have matured into pockets of forest that provide a brilliant display of fall foliage, says A. Wells Pettibone Jr., a descendant of W. B. Pettibone and an active member of Hannibal's Board of Parks and Recreation. Pettibone learned of the importance of Simonds’s landscape legacy through reading Landscape-Gardening. As Robert Grese, author of the introduction to the reprint, says, “Many parks created by O. C. Simonds, like Riverview Park, were created as places of significant natural beauty along major rivers, and Simonds was deeply committed to preserving this heritage. His work can be seen as a precursor to current efforts to protect greenways in many communities for both ecological and recreational uses.” Pettibone recently approached LALH for help, because in his view the park faces a threat from a proposal to build a 30-foot-high water tank on 17 acres that were given to a private water company in 1909. City officials say they need at least one new tank very soon, because older tanks are decaying, but Pettibone believes the project may violate the deed of gift and has suggested exploring other locations for the water tower. Subsequently, preservation consultant Karen Bode Baxter successfully nominated Riverview Park to the National Register of Historic Places. According to Baxter, a register listing should, going forward, encourage the state to review projects such as the water tank and to explore the best way for the water department to accomplish its objectives without having a negative impact on the park. “It’s a very important landscape to preserve, because of its importance in the city’s history and the national significance of Simonds.” Pettibone continues to work with community leaders to protect the park (see related article). Photographs: |
