The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) is an independent

park district 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 venu ...

that owns, maintains, and programs activities in public parks in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

, 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 was rated the #1 park system in the country for the sixth year in a row by

The Trust for Public Land The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has compl ...

in 2018 and again in 2020.

History

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board was created by an act of the

Minnesota State Legislature The Minnesota Legislature is the bicameral legislature of the U.S. state of Minnesota consisting of two houses: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senators are elected from 67 single-member districts. In order to account for decen ...

and a vote of Minneapolis residents in 1883.

Charles M. Loring Charles Morgridge Loring (November 13, 1833 – March 18, 1922) was an American businessman, miller and publicist. Raised in Maine to be a sea captain, Loring instead became a civic leader in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he was a wealthy flour mi ...

was elected the first president of the board. Loring convinced landowners to donate property around

Bde Maka Ska Bde Maka Ska (, previously named Lake Calhoun, its former official designation) is the largest lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and part of the city's Chain of Lakes. Surrounded by city park land and circled by bike and walking ...

, Lake Harriet and

Lake of the Isles Lake of the Isles ( Dakota: ''Wíta Tópa'', "Four Islands") is a lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota, connected to Cedar Lake and Bde Maka Ska. The lake is part of the city's Chain of Lakes and has an area of , of shoreline with a little under thre ...

, as well as on

Minnehaha Creek Minnehaha Creek ( dak, Mniȟáȟa Wakpádaŋ) is a 22-mile-long (35 km) tributary of the Mississippi River that flows east from Gray's Bay Dam on Lake Minnetonka through the suburban cities of Minnetonka, Hopkins, Saint Louis Park, and Edin ...

. Loring hired

Horace Cleveland Horace William Shaler Cleveland (December 16, 1814 – December 5, 1900) was an American landscape architect. His approach to natural landscape design can be seen in projects such as the Grand Rounds in Minneapolis; Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Con ...

to create the original plan for Minneapolis parks in 1883, Cleveland's finest landscape architecture, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with

boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may ...

s and parkways. Loring and Cleveland were instrumental in creating

Minnehaha Park Minnehaha Park is a city park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and home to Minnehaha Falls and the lower reaches of Minnehaha Creek. Officially named Minnehaha Regional Park, it is part of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board syst ...

, with its falls as a centerpiece.

Theodore Wirth Theodore Wirth (1863–1949) was instrumental in designing the Minneapolis system of parks. Swiss-born, he was widely regarded as the dean of the local parks movement in America. The various titles he was given included administrator of p ...

was superintendent from 1906 to 1936 and oversaw the expansion of Minneapolis parks from . 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 of every child and a recreation center within of all residents. In 2017, 97% of all residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. 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 the aftermath of the

murder of George Floyd On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's ...

by a

Minneapolis police The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is the primary law enforcement agency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is also the largest police department in Minnesota. Formed in 1867, it is the second-oldest police department in Minnesot ...

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, the board legalized female

topfreedom Topfreedom is a cultural and political movement seeking changes in laws to allow women to be topless in public places where men are permitted to be barechested, as a form of gender equality. Specifically, the movement seeks the repeal or overtur ...

in the parks.

Description

The park system's make up 15% of the total area of Minneapolis, one of the highest ratios in the country. The city's Chain of Lakes, consisting of seven lakes and

, is connected by bike, running, and walking paths and used for swimming, fishing, picnics, boating, and ice skating. A parkway for cars, a

bikeway Cycling infrastructure is all infrastructure cyclists are allowed to use. Bikeways include bike paths, bike lanes, cycle tracks, rail trails and, where permitted, sidewalks. Roads used by Motor vehicle, motorists are also cycling infrastructu ...

for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians runs parallel along the route of the

Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway The Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway is a linked series of park areas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that takes a roughly circular path through the city. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board developed the system over many years. ...

. Parks are also connected through the

Mississippi National River and Recreation Area The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area is a and protected corridor along the Mississippi River through the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro in the U.S. state of Minnesota, from the cities of Dayton and Ramsey, to just downstream of H ...

regional parks and visitor centers. The country's oldest public wildflower garden, the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary, is located within

Theodore Wirth Park Theodore Wirth Park is the regional park managed by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. The park land is shared by Minneapolis and the neighboring suburb of Golden Valley. Formally named Theodore Wirth Regional Park, it includes two golf ...

. Wirth Park extends into Golden Valley and is almost 90% the size of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

in New York City. Site of the 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 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator. His original works include "Paul Revere's Ride", ''The Song of Hiawatha'', and ''Evangeline''. He was the first American to completely transl ...

named Hiawatha's wife Minnehaha for the Minneapolis waterfall in ''

The Song of Hiawatha ''The Song of Hiawatha'' is an 1855 epic poem in trochaic tetrameter by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which features Native American characters. The epic relates the fictional adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and the tragedy of his l ...

'', 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.

Facilities

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board facilities include of land and water, 179 properties, of biking and walking paths, 49 recreation centers, 22 lakes, 12 formal gardens, and seven golf courses. *

Bohanon Park Bohanon Park is a city park located in the Lind-Bohanon neighborhood of Minneapolis, MN Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of l ...

Bohemian Flats Bohemian Flats Park is a park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States on the west bank of the Mississippi River near the Washington Avenue Bridge and next to the University of Minnesota campus. The area, once known as Little Bohemia, was the si ...

* Cedar Lake *

Gold Medal Park Gold Medal Park is a park in the Downtown East neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in May 2007, the park was designed by landscape architect Tom Oslund and is owned by the city of Minneapolis. It takes its inspiration ...

Kenilworth Trail The Kenilworth Trail is a paved bicycle trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It runs nearly and acts as a connector between the Cedar Lake Trail in the north and the Midtown Greenway in the south. Like the Cedar Lake Trail, most of th ...

* Lake Harriet *

Lake Hiawatha Lake Hiawatha is located just north of Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was purchased by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board in 1922 for $550,000. At that time the lake was a marsh known as Rice Lake, but over four years, the pa ...

Lake Nokomis Lake Nokomis is one of several lakes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and part of the city's Chain of Lakes. The lake was previously named Lake Amelia in honor of Captain George Gooding's daughter, Amelia, in 1819. Its current name was adopted in 1910 ...

Lyndale Park Lyndale Park is a Minneapolis city park on the northeast side of Lake Harriet. It is next to Lakewood Cemetery, southeast of Bde Maka Ska. It is part of an enormous greenspace circling through Minneapolis called the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, an ...

Midtown Greenway The Midtown Greenway is a rail trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota that follows the path of an abandoned route of the Milwaukee Road railway. It is considered under segregated cycle facilities. Used both recreationally and for commuting, the p ...

Mill Ruins Park Mill Ruins Park is a park in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, standing on the west side of Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River and running from 3rd Ave. S. to about 9th Ave. S. The park interprets the history of gristmill, ...

* Minneapolis Sculpture Garden *

Mississippi Gorge Regional Park Mississippi Gorge Regional Park is a regional park along the east and west bluffs of the Mississippi River in the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The two-city park area is between Mississippi river miles 848 a ...

* North Mississippi Regional Park * Parade Stadium *

Tower Hill Park Tower Hill Park marks the northern boundary of Prospect Park, a hilly residential neighborhood in southeast Minneapolis. The 4.7-acre city park is bounded on the northeast by University Avenue, the east by Clarence Avenue, the south by Seymour Ave ...

Victory Memorial Parkway Victory Memorial Parkway, or Victory Memorial Drive, is a section of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway that lies between Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States and Robbinsdale, Minnesota, United States. The parkway runs along the northwestern and nort ...

Winchell Trail Winchell Trail is a round trip, pedestrian-only trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that runs along the west side of the Mississippi River between Franklin Avenue South and East 44th Street. Popular with bird watchers and naturalist ...

Governance

The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board is an independently elected, semi-autonomous

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 and operates four golf courses outside the city limits. Minneapolis voters elect nine commissioners every four years: one from each of 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.

Police

The Superintendent of the Parks has oversight of the Minneapolis Park Police Department—the law enforcement authority of 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 than the

Minneapolis Police Department The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) is the primary law enforcement agency in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is also the largest police department in Minnesota. Formed in 1867, it is the second-oldest police department in Minnesot ...

, but the two forces had 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 the Minneapolis Police Department following the

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 the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Government of Minneapolis Park districts in the United States 1883 establishments in Minnesota Mississippi Gorge