The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-03-31
a v1sIr AVID les REsuLrs.

There is no estimating the great
amount of good that may result from
the recent visit to this city of Chas.
NJ Loring, of Minneapolis. MINI. Mr..
Loring came here without asking or
receiving any remuneration whatever;
he even paid his own expenses. The
people OF Topeka should certainly ap-
preeiate this generosity on the part of
the busy business man who left his
multiplied duties to go one thousand
miles from home for the purpose of
doing good in a community where he
was totally unknown outside of prob
ably half dozen people.
Mr.. Loring is a gentleman of large
means. He is interested in the -four
ing mills of Minneapolis and other
manufacturing institutions in Roch-
ester, N. Y. He is 8, very large en-
ployer of labor. and it is said is con-
stantly in a quiet and effective way
looking after the welfare of his en-
ployes.
He has made a special study of parks
and of street improvements. The i'm
provements he advocates most strongly
are inexpensive: the planting of vines.
flowers. plants and shrubs in places
that are vacant, barren and uninviting.
A cheap morning-glory vine running
over an i'll looking porch in the rear of
a tenement house has an influence for
good that would be wanting were that
morning glory not there.
Just before Mr.. Loring left for his
home Thursday noon he paid a spe-
ciaI visit to the little fatiron shaped
park at the intersection of Huntoon
street and Topeka avenue, and also
looked particularly at Topeka. avenue
from the little park north to Tenth
street
This little triangle of bluegrass,
said Mr.. Loring, "can be made a beau
tiful spot at slight cost by the addi-
ton of a little inexpensive shrubbery,
punched at several places, a little more
gravel around the fountain and the
planting of a few cannas and bright
flowers in a bed or two. In Minneap-
oils we think so much of a spot of
ground no larger than this that we have
expended as much as $4,000 upon it"
Mr. Loring of course here refers to a
monument and a number of very IN
usual park expenses.
Referring to the old abandoned car
tracks on Topeka avenue, he was asked
what he thought of little strip, of
bluegrass where these tracks are, sim
liar to that on a street in Rochester.
New York as shown by one of his
stereopticon pictures in Wednesday
nights lecture. Just the thing" said
he. In Minneapolis we have such
street and we call it Kings Highway.
Such a narrow plat" continued he,
would cost no more than the paving,
and you have no idea of the beauty
and attFactiveness of it,
In talking this matter over since
number of the residents on their por-
ton of Topeka avenue have discussed
it's feasibility. They have thought that
such strip of bluegrass might be
very desirable thing. The plot need
not be quite so wide as the space taken
by the street car paving stones, which
are to come up this spring. The strip
could be divided so that there would be
two or three long plots in block with
a passage way between so that vehicles
could readily drive from one side of the
street to the other without going to
the end of the block. 1t is not known
whether anything will come of this or
not, but Mr.. Lorings visit has started
this kind of talk and an endless amount
of similar discussions.
1t has been suggested, too, That on
very wide streets like Western avenue
a pleasing effect would be produced by
narrower parking grounds next to the
sidewalk and a strip of bluegrass
through the center with also a single
row of trees.
Mr.. Loring was very greatly i'm
pressed with the natural beauty of To-
peka and the great opportunities which
exist here for park improvements at
small expense. He has promised
number of the people of this city to
supplement his lecture here by some
additional correspondence relative to
the improvement of yards and lawns.
All in ALL the people OF this city owe
Mr. Loring a most sincere card of
grateful thanks.