Former Parks
Several units added to the Minnesota state park system over the years have since been redesignated or transferred to other agencies, including the system's very first unit, Camp Release State Memorial Wayside, created in 1889. In most cases these decisions were due to the unit being too small for a state park with little chance of expansion, or largely local use rather than attracting visitors from all over the state and beyond. Four of these units were redesignated as state waysides and are listed above. The other former units were:
| Former name | Date established |
Date redesignated |
Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Ramsey State Park | 1911 | 1957 | Transferred to Redwood Falls as a city park. |
| Birch Cooley Battle Field State Memorial Park | 1929 | 1976 | Transferred to Minnesota Historical Society. |
| Camp Release State Memorial Wayside | 1889 | 1975 | Redesignated Camp Release State Monument. |
| Chippewa Mission State Memorial Wayside | 1931 | 1973 | Transferred to Minnesota Historical Society. |
| Horace Austin State Park | 1913 | 1949 | Transferred to Austin as a city park. |
| Garvin Heights State Park | 1922 | 1961 | Transferred to Winona as a city park. |
| Kaplan Woods State Park | 1935 | 1963 | Part demolished to build a highway, remainder transferred to Owatonna as a city park. |
| Little Elbow Lake State Park | 1963 | 1989 | Transferred to White Earth Indian Reservation. |
| Old Crossing Treaty Historic Wayside | 1931 | 1987 | Parts transferred to Red Lake County and University of Minnesota Crookston, remainder added to Huot Wildlife Management Area. |
| Oronoco Park (later Oronoco State Scenic Reserve) | 1937 | 1965 | Transferred to Olmsted County. |
| Pine Tree State Park | 1947 | 1965 | Transferred to Blackduck as a city park. |
| Pomme de Terre Recreational Reserve | 1937 | 1965 | Transferred to Morris as a city park. |
| Sleepy Eye State Park | 1921 | 1965 | Transferred to Sleepy Eye as a city park. |
| Toqua Lakes State Park | 1921 | 1965 | Transferred to Big Stone County as a county park. |
| Traverse des Sioux State Park | 1905 | 1981 | Transferred to Minnesota Historical Society and city of St. Peter. |
| Watson State Wayside | 1941 | 1959 | Transferred to Watson as a city park. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Minnesota State Parks
Famous quotes containing the word parks:
“Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)