History – Capital Area Greenbelt Association

1900: Mira Lloyd Dock delivers a speech to the Harrisburg Board of Trade on “The City Beautiful,” in which she uses lantern slides to compare the beauty of European cities to the dilapidated and unsanitary conditions of Harrisburg and the Susquehanna River. Dock’s message inspires city leaders, and Harrisburg’s City Beautiful movement is born, resulting in years of public improvements in things such as sanitation, paving, architecture, and the park system.

1901: In a front-page article, the Harrisburg Telegraph galvanizes support for comprehensive city improvements, including clean water, a transformed riverfront, a sewage system, public parks, and paved streets. The Harrisburg League for Civic Improvements, later the Municipal League of Harrisburg, forms, consisting of community leaders and officials, to enlist expert advice on improving the city. The league hires James Fuertes of New York City to create sewage and water plans; M.R. Sherred of Newark, New Jersey, to report on paving; and Warren Manning of Boston to produce plans for a park system. Manning’s report included five aspects: a park along the riverfront; an expansion of Reservoir Park; a “landscape park” in Wetzel’s Swamp, today Wildwood Park; playgrounds throughout the city; and a parkway that would connect the parks and encircle the city, today the Capital Area Greenbelt.

1902: Harrisburg voters overwhelmingly approve a $1.09 million bond issue to implement improvements to parks, the water supply, sewage system, street paving, and the construction of a dam in the Susquehanna River. (In future years, voters would approve three more bond issues for municipal improvements.) Voters also elect Vance McCormick, businessman, owner of The Patriot newspaper, and a founding member of the municipal league. In his single term, which ended in 1905, he helps implement City Beautiful initiatives, including expanding the park system, and his newspaper boosts City Beautiful. The Harrisburg Park Commission is created.

1903: The Harrisburg Park Commission hires Manning as its adviser. Control of Reservoir Park shifts from the park’s own board to the city park commission.

1904: The city purchases 45 acres to expand Reservoir Park.

1905: McCormick signs an ordinance giving the Harrisburg Park Commission authority to purchase Wetzel’s Swamp, later named Wildwood Park after a public contest. J. Horace McFarland, a leader of Harrisburg’s City Beautiful movement and a founding member of the municipal league, joins the city’s park commission. Riverfront Park paths are upgraded, and the city buys 300 benches for the park. Businessman and former U.S. Sen. James Donald Cameron donates part of his land in the Spring Creek valley to the city for inclusion in its parkway system to the intersection with Cameron Street. His donation motivates other landowners east of the property, such as William J. Calder and Samuel S. Rutherford, to donate part of their properties to extend the parkway to Derry Street. Rutherford’s donation includes a historic springhouse, which dates to around 1750, the acquisition of which is completed in 1914. The city begins to purchase land for Wildwood Park. Acquisition of land for the park, sometimes through eminent domain, continues through at least 1913.

1906: Residents begin to donate land north of Derry Street for what would become the Paxtang Parkway. An entrance to the Market Street Bridge is dedicated in Riverfront Park two years after the bridge is built. The entrance, the idea of the Civic Club of Harrisburg, features two pillars from the state Capitol, which had burned to the ground in 1897 (the new Capitol is dedicated in 1906). Rachel Cameron Hale and John Hoffer donate 9 acres to the city to expand Reservoir Park. The city opens a public golf course in Reservoir Park.

1907: Wildwood Park’s first paths open. The park commission opens a municipal beach at the southern end of Island Park, today City Island, with a floating bathhouse. Island Park also includes baseball diamonds, a football field, a basketball court, and a running track. The city’s first water carnival, including boat races and swimming contests, is held on the Susquehanna River on Labor Day, providing an opportunity for the city to continue calling for civic improvements such as the need for a dam.

1912: Dauphin County gives land near the county almshouse to the Harrisburg Park Commission to extend the Cameron Parkway.

1914: The Harrisburg City Council passes an ordinance to acquire Hardscrabble, a village on the west side of Front Street consisting of residents who largely made their living on the river, so that Riverfront Park can be expanded and other riverfront improvements can continue.

1915: Led by Commissioner and future Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore M. Harvey Taylor, the Harrisburg Park Commission receives donations of land from Helen Boyd Dull, Herman P. Miller, A.E. Enders, and the Prospect Hill Cemetery Association to expand the Cameron Parkway. This section of the Cameron Parkway, from Derry Street to Market Street Road, would become known as the Paxtang Parkway. The Riverfront Park walkway, except for the stretch in Hardscrabble, is completed. The city’s park acreage grows to 958, compared with 46 in 1902. The city holds a celebration of its City Beautiful improvements made since 1902.

1916: The Paxtang Parkway is completed. The Dock Street Dam on the Susquehanna River also is finished. Harrisburg’s first Kipona Festival, showcasing the Susquehanna River and Riverfront Park, is held on Labor Day.

1920: The city establishes a permanent municipal beach and bathhouse at the northern end of Island Park.

1921: After years of litigation, a judge rules that residents of Hardscrabble need to vacate their homes, enabling the city to expand Riverfront Park.

1924: The Sunken Garden, developed on the former site of the Hardscrabble neighborhood, is completed in Riverfront Park.

1929: Paxtang Park, established as a trolley park by the Harrisburg Central Traction Co. in 1893, closes. A zoo opens at Wildwood Park. It includes animals such as a black bear, mountain lion, muskrat, and buffalo.

1932: During the Great Depression, the city parks provide work for unemployed people. For example, in March, The Evening News says in an editorial that harvesting trees in Wildwood Park provided nearly $20,000 worth of work and $8,000 worth of fuel. In later years, Works Progress Administration projects in city parks include bridges in Wildwood and the lower Cameron Parkway, a band shell in Reservoir Park, and stone ovens for picnickers in Paxtang Park.

1938: Warren H. Manning, the landscape architect who laid out plans for Harrisburg’s park system in 1902 and was a consultant afterward, dies at his home in Waltham, Massachusetts. “The only part of his original plan that remains unfinished is six miles of the eighteen miles of parkway around the city,” the Harrisburg Sunday Courier reports in a story on Manning’s death.

1939: The Harrisburg Railways Co. donates Paxtang Park to the city of Harrisburg.

1943: During World War II, the Pennsylvania National Guard practices war maneuvers in Wildwood Park.

1945: Mira Lloyd Dock, one of the key leaders of the City Beautiful movement in Harrisburg and who went on to become the first woman appointed to a state commission (forestry) in Pennsylvania, dies. The Wildwood Park zoo closes because of financial problems.

1946: Vance McCormick, a significant leader in Harrisburg’s City Beautiful movement, dies. Aside from serving as mayor from 1902 to 1905 and as owner of The Patriot-News, the businessman chaired the Democratic National Committee and the American Commission to Negotiate Peace at Versailles after World War I.

1948: J. Horace McFarland, one of the leaders of Harrisburg’s City Beautiful movement, dies. In addition to his City Beautiful work, McFarland, as president of the American Civic Association, helped create the National Park Service and helped preserve Niagara Falls from development.

1964: The city deeds 157 acres of Wildwood Park to Harrisburg Area Community College to build its campus.

1965: The U.S. Bureau of Public Roads endorses the state Highways Department’s proposed “river relief route” to ease congestion on Front Street. The planned roadway, today U.S. Routes 22/322, would cut through Wildwood Park.

1967: Over the years, a dump develops in Wildwood Park. In May, the Pennsylvania Department of Health orders the city to close the dump because of environmental hazards. Two days later, a fire at the dump consumes 30 acres in 16 hours. In July, the City Council grants the state Highways Department approval to run Interstate 81 through part of Wildwood Park.

1971: In May, a federal judge issues an injunction stopping federal funds for the construction of the relief route and a segment of Interstate 81 through Wildwood Park. The judge orders the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to study the project’s environmental effects. The relief route was challenged in court by a citizens group consisting of HACC faculty and students, the Coalition Against Ruining the Environment. In June, responding to a request from PennDOT, the City Council passes a resolution declaring that Wildwood Park had no local significance for park and recreational purposes for reasons including its longtime use as a dump, the city’s decline in population, and the significant cost of developing it for recreation.

1972: Tropical Storm Agnes washes out a number of bridges along the Cameron and Paxtang parkways.

1973: For a Sunday in May, the city closes part of the Cameron Parkway in south Harrisburg to automobile traffic, limiting its use to pedestrians and bicyclists. In October, a judge lifts an injunction preventing the construction of the river relief route and a segment of Interstate 81 after the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration agree to realign the relief route’s right of way eastward, out of the central part of the park.

1974: As part of the Harrisburg-area Energy Action Program, the city promotes the use of bicycles as an alternative to single-occupant vehicle travel. Improvements include bike access ramps at Reily Street and near the Walnut Street Bridge in Riverfront Park to allow bicyclists to pass under the M. Harvey Taylor Bridge. Also, the city and the Harrisburg Bicycle Club create a 14-mile “bikeway” that follows much of the Greenbelt’s route.

1975: The Dauphin County commissioners adopt a 10-year parks plan with acquisition of Wildwood Park a main priority.

1976: Dauphin County acquires Wildwood Park from the city of Harrisburg for $1.

1978: The river relief route, U.S. Routes 22/322, running from Cameron Street in Harrisburg to a mile south of Dauphin, opens.

1982: Harrisburg’s park and recreation director orders the closure to traffic of the Paxtang Parkway between Market Street Road and Derry Street in Paxtang because erosion caused portions of the road surface to collapse.

1985: Though still closed to traffic, the Paxtang Parkway is used by bicyclists, joggers, and hikers. Shirley Disend, a frequent user of the parkway, organizes the first of a series of cleanup days to beautify the parkway, which had become inundated with trash.

1989: While completing a street tree inventory for the borough of Paxtang, Norman Lacasse and Ellen Roane of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources’ Bureau of Forestry (today the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) become aware of the Paxtang Parkway and join with local residents to help with cleanups.

1990: Norman Lacasse secures a grant from the USDA Forest Service to develop a master plan for restoring the parkways and completing a loop trail around Harrisburg, to be called the Capital Area Greenbelt. A contest is held among local schools to develop a concept for a logo, from which a DER artist completes the Greenbelt logo. The Bureau of Forestry is instrumental in forming and leading the Capital Area Greenbelt Association. An early goal is cleaning the trail along the Cameron and Paxtang parkways.

1991: The Capital Area Greenbelt Association embarks on its first major construction project: building a 25-foot-long Appalachian Trail-style foot bridge over a branch of Spring Creek on the main trail parallel to the Paxtang Parkway. CAGA volunteers also clear dense vegetation between Paxton Street and Route 441, revealing another abandoned section of paved parkway, this one on county land that was once part of the Dauphin County Poor Farm.

1992: The city of Harrisburg makes major repairs to the sewer line beneath the Cameron Parkway and includes repaving the parkway and repairing washed out bridges in the stretch between Cameron Street and Route 441.

1993: Craig Bachik, landscape architect with Ed Black and Associates, completes a master plan with a grant from the state Department of Community Affairs, providing a nine-year vision for the Greenbelt. The plan is presented at community events held at schools near Paxtang.

1995: Shirley and Sid Disend conceive of a Five Senses Garden to be established adjacent to the Greenbelt, using plants that appeal to each of the five senses, and enlist the help of Craig Bachik to develop a plan. A site adjacent to Spring Creek is selected, just off Route 441 in Swatara Township.

1996: In May, tentative approval by the Dauphin County commissioners to sell 1.35 acres to McDonald’s and lease 2.96 acres to Pep Boys, both in the 3100 block of Paxton Street, draws objections from the Capital Area Greenbelt Association. The commissioners drop the Pep Boys plan but decide to move forward with the McDonald’s project. The proposal galvanizes the association, which votes to continue fighting the project. In October, the association sues the county and Swatara Township. Meanwhile, not far from the disputed site, the Five Senses Garden opens on the Greenbelt in July.

1997: Engineers from DER’s Bureau of Facility Design and Construction design a new deck for an old steel bridge across the Amtrak rail line in south Harrisburg, to enable Greenbelt users to cross the tracks safely. CAGA volunteers construct the deck under their direction. The project provides a link from Riverfront Park in Harrisburg to the Cameron and Paxtang parkways in Swatara Township. After more than a decade of complaints from residents, the stretch that connects Derry and Paxton streets on the Cameron Parkway is restored (news reports and some residents incorrectly refer to this section as the Paxtang Parkway). The state passed legislation temporarily transferring ownership of the parkway to the Department of Transportation so state money could be used to repair the pothole-marked roadway. Norman Lacasse enlists the help of PPL forestry personnel to construct a boardwalk to span the stretch beneath Interstate 83 and railroad lines, between the springhouse and the Rutherford House site.

2000: Improvements continue on the Greenbelt, including construction of an entrance and parking spaces at South 19th Street in Harrisburg and a redesign of the entranceway and creation of parking spaces at the Route 441 entrance in Swatara Township.

2001: With a settlement in the McDonald’s case on the horizon, the disputed 1.35-acre tract on Paxton Street is named Dock Woods in honor of Mira Lloyd Dock during an Earth Day event in which volunteers plant 87 evergreens. Dock helped launch the City Beautiful movement in Harrisburg in the early 1900s. Tim Poole is instrumental in organizing the inaugural Tour de Belt, a 20-mile bicycle ride around the Greenbelt, to showcase the trail and raise money to support its maintenance. In June, 100 bicyclists participate, raising $5,000.

2002: The Dauphin County commissioners approve a settlement to end a dispute over selling 1.35 acres on the Greenbelt to McDonald’s. As part of the deal, the restaurant will now be built on a nearby tract and the original site will continue to be used by the Greenbelt.

2004: Phoenix Park is created on the Greenbelt in south Harrisburg through the work of Londonderry School students, staff, and parents. Volunteers plant trees, install wheelchair-accessible paths, and build gardens at the former site of the Phoenix Steel Corp. plant., which closed in 1960.

2005: A section from the Harrisburg State Hospital grounds to the East Harrisburg Cemetery, as well as a spur to Veterans Park in Susquehanna Township, are constructed. The DER Bureau of Forestry contributes heavy equipment to rough-cut the new trail segment through Department of Agriculture land along Asylum Run, between State Farm Road and the State Hospital grounds.

2007: The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, located on the Cameron Parkway East section of the Capital Area Greenbelt between 19th and 28th streets, is dedicated.

2008: Norman Lacasse writes An Essay on the Professional Life of Mira Lloyd Dock, 1853-1945, a book about one of the Harrisburg City Beautiful movement’s leaders. A path between Harrisburg Area Community College’s Public Safety Drive and the entrance to Wildwood Park on Industrial Road is paved to expand the Greenbelt.

2009: Gov. Ed Rendell signs into law legislation, sponsored by state Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, that protects part of the northern corridor of the Greenbelt in Susquehanna Township from development. The measure enables the state to convey to the township a pedestrian easement of 6.44 acres traversing the former Harrisburg State Hospital grounds along a stretch of Greenbelt.

2011: The Susquehanna Township commissioners accept an easement creating a Greenbelt spur from Andrea Avenue in Harris Hills to the switchback trail connecting to Veterans Park and leading to the former Harrisburg State Hospital grounds. The following year, the township approves an agreement with the Pennsylvania Game Commission allowing use of commission-owned land as a Greenbelt link. The spur runs from the Veterans Park switchback to Andrea Avenue, connecting the Harris Hills and Colonial Hills neighborhoods to the Greenbelt.

2016: The Parkway Trail System, 10-mile natural surface mountain biking trail on the Capital Area Greenbelt, opens. The trail, most of which is in Harrisburg, is funded by the Susquehanna Area Mountain Bike Association.

2017: The Capital Area Greenbelt Association adopts new bylaws, including governance by a board of directors. Former Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch serves as the first board chair.

2018: $2 million in safety and other improvements on the Greenbelt begin. They are part of $7.5 million in state and county funding for upgrades to the Greenbelt.

2019: The city of Harrisburg completes improvements to the lower walkway of Riverfront Park.

2020: A project connecting the Greenbelt from Fort Hunter Park to the northern part of the trail at Wildwood Park is completed. The 2-mile addition costs $4.5 million in state funding and is part of a $7.5 million plan to upgrade the Greenbelt. Another $310,000 in gaming grants is put toward safety upgrades to six intersections along the Greenbelt. Paxtang Park reopens to the public after renovation work by the Susquehanna Area Mountain Bike Association, with help from the Capital Area Greenbelt Association.

2024: A partnership between the Capital Area Greenbelt Association and the city of Harrisburg is expected to bring improvements to the Paxtang Parkway. Upgrades include repaving and narrowing the trail from about 20 feet to 12 feet; relocating sewer infrastructure beneath the streambed; and constructing a new pedestrian bridge.

Read an in-depth history of the making of the Capital Area Greenbelt as part of the City Beautiful movement.

Click here to learn about the completing the 20-mile loop and making of key Greenbelt sections like the MLK Memorial and Five Senses Garden.

View historic photos related to the early Greenbelt.

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