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Phillips Park (Aurora, IL)
Phillips Park is a municipal park in Aurora, Illinois, that includes Phillips Park Zoo. Comprising more than 325 acres, the park is managed by the Department of Parks and Recreation of the city of Aurora, and has co-owned areas with the Fox Valley Park District. History Travis Phillips was a merchant in Aurora who had served as an alderman in the city and as its mayor. His deep love for the area became clear when it was learned after his passing that his will designated $24,000 from his estate be used to purchase land for a park that would be donated to Aurora. On November 21, 1899, the deed of purchase was signed for 60 acres. The land bought had been used as a picnic area for family outings as early as 1835 when it was known as Scharschug's Woods, and was built up as an entertain area in the early 1870s by the Aurora Sharp Shooter Society. At the time of its purchase it was called City Park, though most residents simply referred to it as Phillips Park, a name the city council o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aurora, Illinois
Aurora is a city in the Chicago metropolitan area located partially in DuPage, Kane, Kendall, and Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Located primarily in DuPage and Kane counties, it is the second most populous city in Illinois, after Chicago, and the 144th most populous city in the United States. The population was 197,899 at the 2010 census, and was 180,542 as of the 2020 Census. Founded within Kane County, Aurora's city limits have expanded into DuPage, Kendall, and Will counties. Once a mid-sized manufacturing city, Aurora has grown since the 1960s. From 2000 to 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked the city as the 46th fastest growing city with a population of over 100,000. In 1908, Aurora adopted the nickname "City of Lights", because in 1881 it was one of the first cities in the United States to implement an all-electric street lighting system. Aurora's historic downtown is located on the Fox River, and centered on Stolp Island. The city is divided into t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phillips Park Zoo
Phillips Park Zoo is located on the grounds of Phillips Park, in Aurora, Illinois, United States. It was originally established in 1915, and is still open year-round with no admission charge. It was once home to exotic animals such as giraffes and monkeys, but the zoo's focus changed to native animals after Brookfield Zoo opened in 1934. History After Phillips Park Zoo was established in 1915, a birdhouse was built in 1916. By 1920, the zoo had 5 black bears, 10 monkeys, 19 elk with 19 buffalo, 2 foxes, 1 wolf, and 20 deer, in addition to hundreds of birds. Unfortunately, a hailstorm destroyed the original birdhouse in 1933. After the loss of the birdhouse and Brookfield Zoo opening in 1934, the Phillips Park Zoo refocused on displaying native animals. In 1937, mastodon bones and tusks, which were found in the park, were on display at the zoo causing it to also be known as a museum. Only two major projects took place in the zoo history between 1937 and the 1980s. In 1950, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mastodon
A mastodon ( 'breast' + 'tooth') is any proboscidean belonging to the extinct genus ''Mammut'' (family Mammutidae). Mastodons inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or late Pliocene up to their extinction at the end of the Pleistocene 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. They lived in herds and were predominantly forest-dwelling animals. They generally had a browsing diet, distinct from that of the contemporary Columbian mammoth, which tended towards grazing. ''M. americanum'', the American mastodon, and ''M. pacificus'', the Pacific mastodon, are the youngest and best-known species of the genus. Mastodons disappeared from North America as part of a mass extinction of most of the Pleistocene megafauna, widely believed to have been caused by a combination of climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene and overexploitation by Paleo-Indians. History A Dutch tenant farmer found the first recorded remnant of ''Mammut'', a tooth some in weight, in the village of C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Works Administration
The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was a short-lived job creation program established by the New Deal during the Great Depression in the United States to rapidly create mostly manual-labor jobs for millions of unemployed workers. The jobs were merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter of 1933–34. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the CWA on November 8, 1933, and put Harry L. Hopkins in charge of the short-term agency. The CWA was a project created under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). The CWA created construction jobs, mainly improving or constructing buildings and bridges. It ended on March 31, 1934, after spending $200 million a month and giving jobs to four million people. Accomplishments CWA workers laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and built or improved 255,000 miles of roads, 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, and nearly 1,000 airports. The program was praised by Alf Landon, who later ran against Roosevelt in the 1936 electio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Depression In The United States
In the History of the United States, United States, the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth as well as for personal advancement. Altogether, there was a general loss of confidence in the economic future. The usual explanations include numerous factors, especially high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that permitted overoptimistic loans by banks and investors, and the lack of high-growth new industries. These all interacted to create a downward economic spiral of reduced spending, falling confidence and lowered production. Industries that suffered the most included construction, shipping, mining, logging, and agriculture. Also hard hit was the manufacturing of dur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. It was set up on May 6, 1935, by presidential order, as a key part of the Second New Deal. The WPA's first appropriation in 1935 was $4.9 billion (about $15 per person in the U.S., around 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP). Headed by Harry Hopkins, the WPA supplied paid jobs to the unemployed during the Great Depression in the United States, while building up the public infrastructure of the US, such as parks, schools, and roads. Most of the jobs were in construction, building more than 620,000 miles (1,000,000 km) of streets and over 10,000 bridges, in addition to many airports and much housing. The largest single project of the WPA was the Tennessee Valley Authority. At its pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
