I attended the Upper Delaware Heritage Alliance's picnic at the Zane Grey House. Assistant Superintendent Sandy Schultz of the NPS told about the proposed landscaping plan for the grounds. The short of it is that the grounds should reflect Grey's period of occupancy from l905-1918. However well intentioned this may be, it's impractical as trees and plants are not inanimate objects but living things and the landscape will change again. The great American landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted always said that he designed for the future. Who are we to say that this wasn't Zane Grey's intent?

Olmsted didn't start out to be a landscape designer. He was born in Hartford, Connecticut and his education was limited to various boarding schools and the woodlands where he often roamed. His father gave him free rein to try his hand at various occupations, including a trip to China as an ordinary seaman on a clipper ship. He made a trip to England and fell in love with the countryside and its naturalness. On his return home, he tried farming and gardening. He was influenced in this pursuit by Andrew Jackson Downing, a landscape gardener from Newburgh, NY who planned the landscape for the U.S. Capitol grounds. From Jackson, Olmsted adopted the use of native trees and plant materials in designing landscapes for parks and public buildings. Jackson was one of the first to advocate urban parks, particularly New York's Central Park.

When Olmsted's neighbors saw what he was doing on his Staten Island farm they began asking his advice for their properties. Encouraged by this, Olmsted entered into collaboration with Calvert Vaux, a British born landscape architect, to enter a design competition for New York's Central Park. They won and Olmsted was hired to superintend its construction. Olmsted believed that urban living should be relieved with the opportunity for people to relax and recreate in a natural environment. He also believed in designing for the future rather than the present. If it took 30 to 40 years for a landscape to complete its designed function, so be it.

He was a Renaissance man, joining the anti-slavery cause after extensive travels in the south prior to the Civil War. His book, "The Cotton Kingdom," published in l86l, was a perceptive look at southern Society and was widely heralded by the northern press. He also smuggled arms known as "Beecher's Bibles," after the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, to the Free-Soilers in Kansas in their bitter struggle to keep that state free after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of l854. When the Civil War began, he accepted an appointment as the first Secretary of the U. S. Sanitary Commission, the forerunner of the American Red Cross.

His ties with the NPS go back to his appointment as one of the first commissioners for California's Yosemite Park. His plan for Yosemite was accepted and became the first management plan for a public park that eventually was added to the National Park System. Olmsted also hired "officers" to patrol New York's Central Park, the beginning of a park protective force, a concept adopted by the NPS at it's founding in l9l6.

Olmsted designed suburban communities such as Riverside near Chicago, urban communities such as Buffalo, NY and international projects like Montreal's Mount Royal Park. Every major city in America had a park or park system designed by him including: Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, Boston's Park System and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. He also designed Stanford University in California and America's first World's Fair, the l893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Closer to home, the landscaping plan for the Albright Memorial Library in Scranton is attributed to his firm.

In later years, he suffered from dementia and eventually was placed into an institution. Ironically, unknown to him because of his mental condition, he had designed the landscaping for the facility. He passed away in l903. Fittingly, his home and office in Brookline, Massachusetts are now a part of the NPS. Let's hope that the NPS takes the long view at the Zane Grey House and not opt for instant gratification. Olmsted would understand it if they did.