Kathy Berdan rode the carousel at Como Park, enjoyed the leafy quiet of Swede Hollow Park, explored Newell Park, one of St. Paul’s oldest public spaces. And that was just the beginning of her travels through our city parks.
“I just got on my bike and went. It was so much fun and a learning experience,” Berdan said of biking or walking through 19 iconic St. Paul parks as she did research for “Parks & People: A Colorful History of Saint Paul Parks” ($12.99). This softcover coloring book for adults is published through the first partnership between Ramsey County Historical Society and St. Paul Parks Conservancy.
Kathy Berdan, author of “Parks & People: A Colorful History of Saint Paul Parks,” a celebration of St. Paul Parks. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Historical Society and St. Paul Parks Conservancy)
One of the most surprising facts in the book: 99% of people who live in St. Paul are within a 10-minute walk from a park.
“I loved the diversity of the parks, their history and people I met,” said Berdan, retired Pioneer Press entertainment editor For diversity she cites Frogtown Community Center and General Vang Pao Fields as well as one of the newest parks, Unci Makha, the Dakota name for Grandmother Earth. She says she came to realize the history of our parks is also the history of our city.
“Parks & People,” illustrated with attractive, meticulous line drawings by Jeanne Kosfeld, includes the importance of park visionaries such as Horace Cleveland, whose influence dates to the late 19th century, as well as information about early St. Paul parks including Smith (Mears) Park and Rice Park. (Irvine Park, the oldest, is not in this book because it was the subject of a previous Ramsey County Historical Society coloring book “Irvine Park: St. Paul.”)
Matching Berdan’s enthusiasm for “Parks & People” is C. Michael-jon Pease, first executive director of St. Paul Parks Conservancy, a nonprofit partner of the St. Paul Parks and Recreation Department that raises money and provides expertise to the parks system. Established in 2008, the conservancy has raised about $4 million to improve, expand, renovate and help parks serve changing community needs.
“We are joyful colleagues in this connection with the Historical Society,” says Pease, who lives on St. Paul’s West Side. “Our conservancy staff loves parks and partnering with the society gave us access to their archives, such as the history of Swede Hollow.”
Pease and Berdan intersected often when Pease was executive director of Park Square Theatre and Berdan was covering arts for the Pioneer Press.
Michael-jon Pease, executive director of the St. Paul Parks Conservancy. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Historical Society and St. Paul Parks Conservancy)
“I knew Kathy was exactly the person we needed to write this book,” recalls Pease, an Illinois native who moved here from Rhode Island in 1992 to earn a master’s degree at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota. He later taught fundraising as an adjunct faculty member in the school’s arts and cultural management program.
Berdan was happy to do the book after turning down an earlier suggestion that she join the conservancy board of directors.
“I told them I don’t do boards of directors but I’d help with communications,” recalled Berdan, a Minnesota native who worked at newspapers in Fergus Falls, St. Cloud, and Des Moines, Iowa, before joining the Pioneer Press in 2000.
Now that the book is published, Pease is looking forward to expanding the scope of the conservancy’s partnership with Ramsey County Historical Society through projects that help visitors enjoy these spaces even more. These might include better signage, more publications, and a website that helps people access information about the parks when they are out and about.
The first of these is The Great Park Walk game. Using the Goosechase app on their phones, people are invited to take selfies at each of the parks featured in the book. Those who visit all the parks are eligible to win a copy. The game is live now through Aug. 3.
Berdan and illustrator Kosfeld will sign books at the launch from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday at Waldmann Brewery, 445 N. Smith Ave., St. Paul, with beer and music. The book will also be available at Parks Giving Day celebration from noon to 1 p.m. May 16 in Irvine Park.
More info at saintpaulparksconservancy.org/2025/04/get-your-parks-people-coloring-book/
Trivia
How much do you know about St. Paul parks? Take this quiz and find out.
Which park is:
on a site that was once a hill?
one of the most popular, drawing 2 million visitors annually?
where a bronze eagle protects her chicks?
the home of a replica of a pavilion in China?
named for a man who organized Black porters on Pullman Company trains?
a former refuge for immigrants with a creek running through it?
an area with remains of kilns left from when bricks were made there?
previously known as Navy island, used as a military base and training facility?
where water diverted to a culvert for more than a century flows as centerpiece?
named for a family known for luggage who had owned the land?
Answers:
Mears 2. Como 3. Summit Lookout 4. Phalen 5. Boyd 6. Swede Hollow 7. Lilydale 8. Raspberry Island 9. Unci Makha 10.Pedro
Related Articles
Literary calendar for week of May 4
How a surprising Shakespeare discovery was found in a letter used as scrap paper
Literary pick for week of May 4
Book Review: From incels to trad wives, culture critic probes 21st century backlash against feminism
Why ‘Chronology of Water’ author Lidia Yuknavitch revisits the past in ‘Reading the Waves’
Leave a Reply