In 1890, Olmsted was hired by owners of the Denver Railway and Telegraph Company and real estate developers to design the Denver and Lookout Mountain Resort. Olmsted’s preliminary design of the 2380-acre site included hiking trails to a hotel, summer cabins and a reservoir. The Denver Real Estate Exchange subscribed $55,000 of the $120,000 stock option for the project.

A bonfire at the east summit of Lookout (where antenna towers now stand) was set by investors H.A.W. Tabor and Colonel A.C. Fisk in February, 1890, to promote the "City on the Hill." All potential investors (and newspaper reporters) marveled at the flames, seen clearly from Denver. The development was promoted as "Denver’s greatest future attraction."

Repeal of the Sherman Act in 1893 cut the value of silver in half and caused a financial "panic" in Colorado. But, Olmsted must have seen great potential for the scenic site because he urged his son "Rick" to be a surveyor apprentice in Colorado in 1894. The Lookout Mountain reservoir, later called the Golden Reservoir or Cedar Lake, was built in 1895.

Above: Olmsted’s topographical detail of Denver & Lookout Mountain Resort, Job 1206, April 1890; courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, MA. (Outlined section is Cedar Lake Reservoir)

Securing a water supply and building roads to Lookout was more formidable then the dreamers realized. By 1898, investors abandoned the project. British real estate investor Rees Vidler rekindled the resort dream in 1904. He gained Golden water taps in exchange for an easement crossing Lookout for Beaver Brook water to be stored at Cedar Lake.

After Olmsted died in 1903, his son "Rick" was hired by Denver to design a Mountain Parks System in 1912. Reliable travel to Lookout was realized in 1914 when Golden’s "Cement Bill" completed the Lariat Trail and Vidler financed a funicular up to Lookout from Golden.

Above: Olmsted Plans & Drawings Collection, Job #1206, Denver and Lookout Mountain Company, showing resort in relation to Golden, Morrison and West Foothills. Courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, MA.

Rick was the youngest Olmsted child, named Henry at birth in 1870. Henry’s name was changed to Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. when he was seven. "Rick" was much like his father – easy with people, a writer, headstrong, bright and curious. The father and son apparently agreed that the extraordinary work of the pioneer father must continue. It is likely that Olmsted met with Denver’s power elite while designing the Lookout Mountain resort in 1890. Today’s Genesee Park picnic sites and trails, summer rowers and winter skaters on Evergreen Lake may not have developed without inspiration by Olmsted himself.

Frederick Law Olmsted was America’s first community planner to resist the American preference for quick fixes. New Yorkers could not visualize the future surroundings of Central Park when Olmsted first designed it in 1857. He predicted: "The time will come when New York will be built up" the island will have been converted into foundations for rows of monotonous straight streets, and piles of erect, angular buildings. There will be no suggestion left of its present varied surface, with the single exception of the Park""

Olmsted is most famous for the 30 years it took to build (and protect from ever changing politics) Central Park. But his work stimulated an American "city beautiful" movement by the 1880s. He and architect Daniel Burnham designed Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition of 1893. Olmsted designed the first large suburban community, foresaw the need for national parks, designed numerous college campuses and cemeteries, the first park system at Niagara Falls in Buffalo, and the first regional plan.

Olmsted believed the curative power of natural scenery was universal. His visionary network of parks, parkways, avenues, and public spaces were new to Americans. His landscapes educated the public with regional indigenous plants and trees. Millions continue to enjoy his legacy in New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington DC., and Jefferson County, Colorado, among others.

Olmsted always knew he was planning for the future: "Before many years, if proper facilities are offered, these hundreds will become thousands and in a century the whole number of visitors will be counted by millions." He believed that preservation of wilderness supports human health, stimulates "civility," helps secure real estate value, and supports free enterprise.

Born in 1822 in Hartford, Connecticut, Olmsted’s mother died when he was three. He and his younger brother John were favored by their successful merchant father who remarried and had four more children. Frederick was bright, impulsive, enterprising and impeccably honest. He was more comfortable outdoors in "rustic surroundings" than in the classroom. His academic education was a hodgepodge of boarding schools, tutors, mentors and books. His favorite relative, Uncle Law, introduced him to the Hartford Natural History Society and their extensive library. Frederick loved to read and write.

Rather than attend Harvard with his friends, Olmsted’s idea of "self improvement" was to work outdoors for two years, surrounded by native plants and scenery, as an apprentice surveyor. His intense curiosity was satisfied by learning to lay out roads, residential lots, topographic maps and the mathematics required to complete subdivision plans. He then learned bookkeeping, accounting and office organization while developing a career in international trade. But he missed being outdoors and yearned for adventures to far-off places.

At the age of 21, Olmsted became a seaman for one year on a merchant ship to China. He suffered from serious illness, accidents and living in cramped conditions, sustained by a diet of salt beef and biscuits. He maintained his sanity by writing. This common labor experience, and withdrawal from all plants and trees, established a deep compassion for working people in need of a park nearby, to replenish their souls with nature.

His father’s wealth enabled Olmsted to enjoy a leisurely country life between jobs. In 1846 he wrote, "I will find Truth and be governed by it, so far as I can, with the light God is pleased to give me. I will be accountable to none but God for my opinions and actions. Trusting in Him for light I will not fear for nor care for what man thinks of, or does towards me."

After an unsuccessful attempt to get his journal of maritime experience published, he assumed that "scientific farming" would suit him. In 1847, Olmsted’s father purchased a small Connecticut farm for his son. Frederick learned "gentleman farming" from successful mentors, horticultural periodicals and books. Beautifying the landscape of homes was becoming fashionable, so he established a nursery business that was less susceptible to seasonal price fluctuations.

Rather than follow the landscape architect tradition of designing "flower beds," Olmsted was attracted to architecture that blends with regional indigenous landscaping. But the isolation of farming did not satisfy this sociable vagabond that enjoyed the challenge of political intrigues.

His inquisitive, good-natured, observant, unpredictable and skeptical nature served him well as a budding journalist. His first published book, Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, was published in 1852. He found "ordinary people" worth listening to and quoted them with their slang, dialect, and grammatical errors.

His keen observation of social conditions led to becoming a correspondent reporting on slavery in the Southern states and Texas. Appalled by the brutal conditions forced on the slaves, he became an abolitionist in support of gradual emancipation. He reported the practical and financial consequences from slaves having no incentive to work. He believed the resulting inefficiency was more costly than employing free individuals that work for pay.

His book, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, led to a managing editor job in New York City, which increased his vast network of powerful and wealthy acquaintances. He became a respected and "popular" personality.

In 1857, New York City commissioners requested submissions for a park design of some 800 acres in the center of the Manhattan Island. "Landscape architect" Olmsted and building architect Calvert Vaux were selected from 35 entries. When the park was beginning to take shape, Olmsted married his brother’s widow Mary in 1859 and adopted her three children.

His book, The Cotton Kingdom, was published just before the Civil War began in 1861. Olmsted’s experience of managing thousands of Central Park workers served the nation well as he was called upon by President Lincoln to organize the U. S. Sanitary Commission, which became the American Red Cross. Later, his ability to plan for the future and manage large scale projects also led to establishing the Bureau of Vital Statistics.

In 1868, Olmsted’s book of city planning was published. The Pioneer Condition and The Drift of Civilization in America criticized what we understand today as the American preference for the "quick fix" rather than long-term, comprehensive planning. His perceived decline of "civil behavior" caused by "rapid enlargement of towns" stimulated his support for founding the American Social Science Association. He recognized how fragile American society is and was concerned that self-interest does not built community.

After the war, Olmsted was hired to manage thousands of miners at a gold mine in Bear Valley, California. He was appalled by Western pioneers treatment of land, leaving garbage and toxic tailings anywhere they chose. After Mary and the children joined him, they camped often near Yosemite Falls and the Big Tree Grove (redwoods). He established the Yosemite Commission and used his influence in Washington DC. to support its preservation as our first national park.

Olmsted combined his social concerns with long-term planning that would provide space for recuperative power. His experiences with every walk of life – Chinese miners, common laborers, Black slaves, politicians, wealthy corporation owners, American Presidents – contributed hundreds of landscape legacies that continue to serve humanity today.

He was America’s first "city planner" with regional emphasis. "The essential qualification of a suburb is domesticity" gracefully-curved lines and an absence of sharp corners" with minimum of "traffic." There must be plenty of open space for picnics, ball fields, reservoirs (or ponds and streams) and a new kind of road, part avenue and part green space, called "parkways." He always planned a 20-minute railroad link between the city and suburb.

His indomitable energy, confidence, intuitive creativity and iron determination sparked a city park movement across the nation that led to preservation of national parks and forests. He was an organizer, technician and visionary, with the ability to endure constant shifts of political favor. His authority was always that of THE PLAN.

Recommended reading: A Clearing in the Distance, by Witold Rybczynski, published by Scribner, 1999. This extraordinary biography of Olmsted will keep your interest to the end.