The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-11-03

l the park and tree commission trans l formed a wilderness into modern and useful park.
 Tn this cemetery is the Jones vault, | from which the remains of Gen. Ma thaniel Greene were disnterred and from | there reinterred under the monument erected to his memory. This monument stands in the center of Johnson square,
 the first square south of our magnificent city hall.
 An Uphill Task
 'eThe work of improving and beauti- flying our city has been an uphill task and the commission met with much dis couragement at first, principally in lack of cooperation by the public, and in the great lack of appreciation of the various
 city councils as to the vast amount of
 territory to be covered. We have been
 badly handicapped by small appropria- tions, but still the commission has strug
 gled on and we feel much gratihed that
 we have accomplished the wonderful
 transformation on a very small amount
 of money.
 We have made up detailed state
 ment of appropriations which the com
 mission has received since 1t was ere
 ated, and you can see from the com
 parison of years. that in the year 1897,
 we had an appropriation of s12,500, at
 which time we onlyshad 65.92 acres Of
 public grounds, and today we have an
 appropriation of $12,000. with which to take care of 191.54 acres of public grounds, or nearly three times as
 much area as we had in the year 1897.
 The rule seems to be that the more territory added, the smaller the ap- propriation, consequently 1t is indeed , hard matter to keep the park sys-
 tenn up 10 the standard we are striv- } ing for, and yet we feel that 1t will | hl .xrIf nf mai r systems upon which greater amount
 of omney has been and is being spent. "The greatest drawba to the ac- compllshment of the improvements 3 that the commission laid out has been . the lack of funds. but we must admit that the present city council has been more liberal with us than former ones. ITO give you some idea of the dis couragements we have met with. vii, [ cite you an instance relative to Estiii park, and this perhaps can best be done by quoting from the annual re- port of the commission for the year
 1896.
 Report of Commission Estill park comprises 275 acres of land, situated about five miles south oi
 Savannah and Is crossed by the City and Suburban railroad and by the old
 and new Casey canal. It was donated
 to the city by the commissioners oi
 Chatham county, upon condition that
 the municipal government should appro- priate for its improvement $5o0 per an- mum for six years and 5000 per annun for five years. The first period com-
 menced in 1898.
 '..During the year we have started an artesian well which will be complete
 in January, 1S97 We have planted touI
 rows of magnclias. 256 trees, on the Me ridian road, which crosses the western side of the park. We have had a survey f and contour map made, commenced 8 nursery from which to obtain trees foi planting in the city. have completed a beautiful rustic bridge over the Casey , canal and have built log cabin for the superintendent, which Is typical cabin l of antebellum days. The artesian wei l will feed the lake and the bridge Will ) be one of several connecting the drives l had the advice of Olmstead. Olmstead ( r Elliott, landscape artists
 .As you see from this quotation the city . was to appropriate a certain sum tol l this park for certain period Of years l and according to the contract with the county, the said park would revert back to 1t unless the city fulfilled its part oi the contract, and we regret to say thai the city did not meet it's part of the con tract, consequently the park reverted. and the chairman of the commission has usec , every endeavor to get the city to again ask for this piece of land. and to expeno } a stipulated amount each year upon its i improvement and maintenance. Savannah : is a growing city, and the years will not
 be many when such park will be most : useful to it's citizens. But we pleaded to no avail; the matter stands just where the city abandoned It.