A park district is a form of local special-purpose district for providing public parks and recreation in or near its geographic boundaries. Some park districts also own or maintain related cultural facilities such as monuments, zoos , sports venues, music venues, or museums .
23-522: The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board ( MPRB ) is an independent park district that owns, maintains, and programs activities in public parks in Minneapolis , Minnesota , United States. It has 500 full-time and 1,300 part-time employees and an $ 111 million operating and capital budget. The Minneapolis park system has been called the best-designed, best-financed, and best-maintained in America. Minneapolis
46-779: A 9-hole par 3 course), Wirth Lake , Birch Pond, cross-country ski trails, mountain biking trails, snow tubing hills, and other amenities. The park is managed by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and forms a significant portion of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway , linking the Chain of Lakes area with the Victory Memorial Parkway . The park that became known as Theodore Wirth Park was established in 1889 with an initial acquisition of 66 acres (270,000 m ). The park currently occupies 759 acres (3.07 km ), which
69-403: A local judge , rather than by a publicly elected park board. This government -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Theodore Wirth Park Theodore Wirth Park is the regional park located in Minneapolis and Golden Valley , Minnesota , United States. Formally named Theodore Wirth Regional Park, it includes two golf courses (an 18-hole course and
92-478: A similar way to not-for-profit organizations ; in addition, sometimes a park district is assisted by a private not-for-profit organization set up specifically for the purpose of assisting the local public park system. Park district jurisdiction over public recreation is usually not exclusive; other local government bodies may also have their own parks. Local government bodies besides park districts also own museums and public event venues such as arenas; in some places
115-414: Is 90% of the size of New York City 's Central Park at 843 acres (3.41 km ). It was eventually named for Theodore Wirth , who was superintendent of Minneapolis parks for 30 years from 1906 to 1936. The park was the venue for the 2024 Stifel Loppet Cup international cross-country ski competition. A geographic marker at one corner of the park grounds, at Wirth Parkway and Golden Valley Road, marks
138-520: Is an independently elected, semi-autonomous park district responsible for governing, maintaining, and developing the Minneapolis park system. The jurisdiction of the park board is contiguous with the City of Minneapolis borders, although it owns four golf courses and its largest park, Theodore Wirth Park is outside the city limits. Minneapolis voters elect nine commissioners every four years: one from each of
161-704: Is the city's largest employer of youth. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary, is located within Theodore Wirth Park . Wirth Park extends into Golden Valley and is almost 90% the size of Central Park in New York City. Site of the 53-foot (16 m) Minnehaha Falls, Minnehaha Park is one of the city's oldest and most popular parks, receiving over 850,000 visitors each year. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for
184-630: The COVID-19 pandemic . Park district Park districts are prevalent in the United States . State statutes often have a general law to provide for park districts' creation, dissolution, geographic borders, and annexation ; the selection of governing boards, often referred to as park boards ; and the criteria for levying property taxes on behalf of the district. Park districts sometimes obtain additional revenue by charging admission fees for some venues and through donations or voluntary memberships in
207-557: The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area regional parks and visitor centers. Among the board's youth work programs, Teen Teamworks has provided on-the-job training for green careers to ages 14 to 24, since 1986. In 2022, the program recruited 500 participants. Other youth programs are Recreation Plus and the Youthline Outreach Mentorship Program, founded in the 1980s and 1991. The board
230-478: The Isles , and on Minnehaha Creek . Loring hired Horace Cleveland to create the original plan for Minneapolis parks in 1883, Cleveland's finest landscape architecture , preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevards and parkways . Loring and Cleveland were instrumental in creating Minnehaha Park , with its falls as a centerpiece. Theodore Wirth was superintendent from 1906 to 1936 and managed
253-521: The Minneapolis Police Department following the murder of George Floyd by a city police officer. The decision prohibited Minneapolis police officers from staffing park events and prohibited park police form assisting the Minneapolis Police Department. Nearly two years later, on May 4, 2022, the park board restored its relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department to allow the return of large events in parks that had been disrupted due to
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#1733085595594276-791: The Minneapolis waterfall in The Song of Hiawatha , a bestselling and often-parodied 19th century poem. The first natural swimming pool in the United States opened in Webber Park in 2015. The outdoor pool does not use any chemicals, rather it uses natural filters and plants in several container ponds to keep the water clean. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board facilities include 6,804 acres (27.53 km) of land and water, 179 properties, 102 miles (164 km) of biking and walking paths, 49 recreation centers, 22 lakes , 12 formal gardens, and seven golf courses. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board
299-596: The aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. However, the Powderhorn situation became untenable after numerous sexual assaults, fights, and drug use reported at the encampment generated alarm for nearby residents, leading to the eviction of many people in tents. Four people died in encampments in city parks in 2020, including a 38-year-old man who was stabbed to death on January 3, 2021, at an encampment in Minnehaha Park. On November 18, 2020,
322-419: The board legalized female topfreedom in the parks. On July 2, 2024, MPRB employees announced a week-long strike, citing insufficient wage raises and hazard protections in recent contract negotiations. The strike began on July 4th, one of the city's busiest days for green spaces, with workers returning on July 26th following a new contract agreement. The park system's 6,084 acres (24.62 km) make up 15% of
345-543: The control of a " chief executive officer " appointed by the mayor of Chicago rather than a publicly elected park board as with other park districts in Illinois. Numerous cities and suburbs in Illinois have independently-elected park boards, and other regionally-elected bodies exist such as the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County and Fox Valley Park District. Minnesota held a plebiscite in 1883 which created
368-501: The expansion of Minneapolis parks from 1,810 to 5,241 acres (732 to 2,121 ha). Wirth was an advocate of active recreation in all city parks and put up signs saying "Please Walk on the Grass." Wirth also promoted neighborhood parks for the whole city, his plans called for a playground within one-quarter mile (400 m) of every child and a recreation center within one-half mile (800 m) of all residents, however Wirth never built them. In
391-812: The independently-elected Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board . In some states, such as Illinois , park districts are also authorized to have their own park police departments, independent of the other local police departments or state or national park police. In Ohio , the Ohio Revised Code section 1545 provides for general park districts, often known as "metro parks", in addition to "township park districts" allowed under ORC section 511.18. Township park districts may be converted into "metro parks" by public election. Section 1545 park districts are authorized to operate their own park police as well. Park districts in Ohio are controlled by park commissioners appointed by
414-466: The main public museums are instead part of the local library district or a separate museum district. State parks and national parks , and other related state and national areas, are controlled at the level of government that created them, rather than by any local park district. Illinois statute provides specifically for an administrative body known as the Chicago Park District , which is under
437-471: The park board. Led by a park police chief, the force consists of 30 sworn officers and 20 part-time park patrol agents. The park police is a separate entity from the Minneapolis Police Department , but the two forces have shared training, support services, and authority to police in both parks and throughout the city. The park board voted unanimously on June 3, 2020, to end its relationship with
460-626: The six park districts, and three that serve at-large. The district and at-large members are elected using ranked choice voting . The Board of Commissioners appoints the superintendent and sets policy for the park board. Minneapolis and Vancouver, Canada are the two largest cities in the US and Canada to have elected park boards. The Superintendent of the Parks has oversight of the Minneapolis Park Police Department —the law enforcement authority of
483-538: The total area of Minneapolis, equal to the national median. The city's Chain of Lakes , consisting of seven lakes and Minnehaha Creek , is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the 52 miles (84 km) route of the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway . Parks are also connected through
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#1733085595594506-575: Was from 1966 to 1978, during the tenure of superintendent Robert W. Ruhe , when the board built the city's neighborhood parks and recreation centers in underserved areas. In 2020, 98% of all residents lived within a 10-minute walk of a park, compared to the national median of 55%. In July 2020, the park board voted to allow encampments for people experiencing homelessness at up to 20 city parks with 25 tents each. The change in policy came after several hundred people took up residence in Powderhorn Park in
529-510: Was rated the #1 park system in the country for the sixth year in a row by The Trust for Public Land in 2018 and again in 2020. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board was created by an act of the Minnesota State Legislature and a vote of Minneapolis residents in 1883. Charles M. Loring was elected the first president of the board. Loring convinced landowners to donate property around Bde Maka Ska , Lake Harriet and Lake of
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