Episode 126: 18:53 Working Tools Series - Masonic Visionaries

How did Minneapolis secure its crown as one of America’s greatest park cities? It started with two men. 

This week, we profile Charles M. Loring—the "Father of Minneapolis Parks"—and Theodore Wirth, the legendary superintendent who designed them. From saving the Chain of Lakes to inventing modern urban recreation, we track the timeline, brilliant engineering, and legacy of the duo who turned a treeless prairie into a world-class network of interconnected green spaces. 

Brothers Charles M. Loring and Theodore Wirth were members of Hennepin Lodge No. 4 (Masonic Temple on 6th and Hennepin). 

Transcript

0:00

Charles M. Loring is known as the father of the park system of Minneapolis. And while he's always been prominently identified with nearly every important movement for the benefit of the city, he will be held in a special esteem by the citizens of Minneapolis for the invaluable service which he rendered in planning and securing for the city its admirable park system. Mr. Loring was a native of New England, where the family name was well known. The first of the family was Thomas Loring, an early settler from England. The grandfather of C.M. Loring was a successful and honored teacher in Portland, Maine, where he was known as Master Loring. His son, Captain Horace Loring, was a shipmaster voyaging to the West Indies. He married Sarah Wiley, who was of Scotch descent Charles M. Loring, the subject of this sketch, and a son of Horace Loring and Sarah Wiley, was born in Portland, Maine, November thirteen, eighteen thirty-three. His father took him while yet a lad on his voyages and destined him to become a navigator. He became a mate on his father's ship and spent some time in Cuba. But the life of a shipmaster was not to his taste, and he, to the great disappointment of his friends, relinquished that which was the height of every Maine boy's ambition, a chance to become a sea captain, and started for the West in eighteen fifty-six. He located first at Chicago and engaged in wholesale business with B.P. Hutchinson, the well-known grain speculator. Ill health at that time brought Mr. Loring to Minneapolis, when through the aid of his friend, Lauren Fletcher, he obtained employment with Dorillus Morrison as the manager of his supply store in connection with his lumber business. This was in eighteen sixty. The following year, he joined Mr. Fletcher in the general merchandise business in Minneapolis under the firm name of L. Fletcher Company They were very successful in their business, and the firm became one of the strongest in the city. In 1873, they also became the principal owners of the Minnetonka Mill located near Lake Minnetonka. Mr. Loring was also active in other lines of business and became a large owner of real estate and other property, which required his attention It's written that Mr. Loring was a man of refined tastes and a great lover of nature, devoted to horticulture in its most artistic aspect. And when the first board of park commissioners were selected, his name was placed at the head of the list, although he was absent at the time in Europe. This board was organized in 1883, and for the next seven years, Mr. Loring gave largely of his time and ability to the acquirement and development of the system of parks and boulevards for which the city of Minneapolis was justly famous. In recognition of his great services in this regard, the name of Central Park was changed, and that beautiful pleasure ground of the people will always be known as Loring Park. When the state decided to establish a state park at Minnehaha, he was appointed one of the commissioners. This property became part of the park system of Minneapolis. and the acquirement of that tract around the romantic and historic waterfall was due to Mr. Loring. Notwithstanding his impaired health in later years, Mr. Loring became actively interested in various business enterprises. In 1886, he was elected president to the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and held that office until 1890, when he declined a re-election Upon the organization of the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company, including the Galaxy Mill of which he was part owner, he was made a director of the company. He was also identified with various financial institutions of the city. Notwithstanding the activity of his business life, Mr. Loring had found time to gratify his refined tastes and was listed as a gentleman of culture and attainments. Never a very rugged physique, in later years he found it desirable, owing to the severity of the Minnesota climate, to spend his winters on the Pacific Coast, where he acquired at Riverside, California, a fruit ranch. He also spent considerable time and travel abroad, as well as in this country, and availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded to gratify his taste for art and learning. He was a man of most kindly manners and held in the highest esteem by his fellow citizens. Brother Charles M. Loring was a member of Hennepin Lodge number four in Minneapolis. he withdrew in November of 1879, presumably to join the new Curam Lodge number one 12 as a charter member. Theodore Wirth was hired by Charles Loring in 1905 to serve as superintendent of Minneapolis Parks from 1906 until 1935. he immigrated to the United States from Switzerland in 1888 He served 10 years as the head of Hartford Parks, the oldest public park system in the country, and was pivotal in the creation of the first public rose garden in the United States, a project he replicated in Minneapolis at Lyndale Park. Mr. Worth was an advocate of playgrounds for children in parks and best known for reshaping the city's lake shores and building its parkways. He managed the initial construction or improvement of most of today's Grand Rounds parkways. He also established the Wild Botanical Garden, now known as the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden, in 1907, the first public wildflower garden in the United States. Mr. Worth recommended that sheep in Glenwood, now Worth Park, would pay for themselves by mowing, fertilizing, and providing wool and mutton that could be sold. Implemented in 1921, the project lasted only a few months. A little known fact is that he supervised the creation and development of the Minneapolis Airport into a world-class facility. The airport was acquired and developed by the Park Board until it was turned over to the Metropolitan Airport Commission in the mid-1940s. The Minneapolis park system tripled in acreage while he was superintendent, and he created the professional organization to manage the parks. He was required to retire in 1935 due to civil service age rules. three years after he retired, Minneapolis' largest park was named for him Brother Theodore Worth became a Mason in 1917 and was also a member of Hennepin Lodge No. 4, which met at the Masonic Temple in Minneapolis on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month. Brothers Charles M. Loring and Theodore Wirth were perhaps a bit lost to history as being brother Masons who committed their time and talents to the beautification of Minneapolis. The next time you find yourself in a park either named Loring or Theo Wirth, remember the Masonic legacy of these two brothers who committed their lives to giving back to the greater good of their community. This has been another episode of the 1853 Working Tool Series on Minnesota Masonic histories and mysteries