Renovation of the Longfellow Gardens section of Minnehaha Park, begun in the fall of 2003, is nearing completion. A variety of perennials and annuals have now been planted in the paisley-shaped garden areas—the garden design and selection of flowers an homage to the Longfellow Gardens of the early 20th Century. By spring of 2006, when the surrounding turf will be established, the area will be ready to provide a picturesque backdrop to weddings and other special events.
Longfellow Gardens is the part of Minnehaha Park that now covers the
land bridge over Highway 55 and includes the area west of the bridge down to the creek. First named Longfellow Gardens by its owner, showman-entrepreneur R.F. “Fish” Jones, it was part amusement park and zoo, and part formal gardens. Jones was reputed to be a Longfellow devotee, but it may have been his genius for business that inspired him to name the park after the poet who had memorialized the nearby Minnehaha Falls in his famous poem, “The Song of Hiawatha.” Eventually Jones donated Longfellow Gardens to the Park Board, and the zoo was dismantled. Other than moving the Longfellow House east of Hiawatha Avenue, this section of Minnehaha Park has gone largely untended for many years.
The 1992 Minnehaha Park Renovation Plan specified that the area be developed into formal gardens once again. The plan, however, did not anticipate the degree of elevation created by the land bridge over Hiawatha Avenue. Through a series of meetings that took place in the fall of 2002 and winter of 2003, a thirteen-member Citizen Advisory Committee worked with park staff and design consultants to create a plan that would integrate both the 1992 Renovation Plan and the natural environs, which increasingly predominate as you near the creek.
With the project virtually complete, a formal garden featuring a sundial and a pergola now graces the top of the land bridge. In contrast, native shrubs, flowers, and grasses have been planted close to the creek to stabilize the shoreline, compete with the reed canary grass and other invasive species, and provide wildlife-friendly habitat. The steep incline left by the land bridge construction has become a gentle slope planted with the prairie flowers and grasses of an oak savanna, an increasingly rare plant community native to Minnesota.
Walking paths wind among the gardens and traverse the site, providing a pedestrian connection to the falls area of the park; a new bike path also creates a connection over the tunnel for cyclists.
The renovation of Longfellow Gardens is among several projects that have improved and expanded facilities in Minnehaha Park since 1992. Other efforts have included a pergola, paths and other improvements near the Stevens House; Godfrey Parkway reconstruction with new paths and parking facilities; improvements to the refectory and falls area; and new paths, roadway and picnic areas along Minnehaha Ave. A particularly exciting feature of the Longfellow Gardens project is its role in uniting the area west of the Hwy. 55 cut and cover tunnel with the rest of the park.
The Longfellow Garden Renovation project has been funded with a grant from the Metropolitan Council, which approved the 1992 Minnehaha Park Renovation Plan and also has funded components of the master plan already accomplished.
