I have been taking walks in Louisville’s Cherokee Park. We have the luxury of 18 Olmsted designed parks and six parkways in Louisville. Cherokee is right across the street from us. Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park in New York, began the design of Cherokee in 1891. His sons and the Olmsted Firm worked on the remaining Louisville designs, ending with Seneca Park in 1928. Olmsted was also working on the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, at the same time as Cherokee. These were among his last projects.
Both designs share a similar winding entrance. Olmsted historian Charles Beveridge considered the entrance to Cherokee Park, from Willow Avenue, to be Olmsted’s most beautiful and engaging park entrance drive. Beech woods open into a clearing overlooking Baringer Hill.
According to Susan Rademacher, founding President of Louisville’s Olmsted Parks Conservancy, “The official starting date for both Cherokee and Biltmore is 1891. Olmsted was expressing his mastery of the entry experience at two different scales, one public and one private.”
Winter walks in the 409-acre Cherokee Park, on its western edge from Willow Avenue, take me up to Baringer Hill and down the road to Baringer Spring, near the Eastern Parkway entrance. (And back again during warm days in the early New Year that turned to snowy, icy, and Arctic cold by the third week.)
I am happy when my mind wanders in the park
There’s always something new: walkers, bicyclists, bench sitters, bird watchers, lovers, and sledders attempting to escape the weight of the world.
Winter bark and the silhouettes of old trees catch my eye…