Chautauqua legacy

• Chautauqua Park

Brian Korthals/Daily Globe A grant received by the Nobles County Historical Society will be used to determine if Chautauqua Park is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Talk about it

WORTHINGTON — For 137 years, local residents have used a plot of land along the shore of Lake Okabena for recreational purposes. It has been the site of picnics, parties, cultural programs, concerts, revivals and countless other gatherings, public and private.

Consequently, there’s a lot of history in the place known as Chautauqua Park, but is it enough to qualify it for the National Register of Historic Places?

That’s what the Nobles County Historical Society aims to find out, thanks to a Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Grant. The $7,000 award, recently announced by the Minnesota State Historical Society and made possible by the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund., will be used to hire a qualified historian to evaluate the park as a candidate for the National Register of Historic Places. The prospect will be brought before the Worthington City Council at tonight’s meeting before the investigative work can proceed.

The idea of pursuing a historical declaration actually started with the city, according to Pat Demuth, a volunteer who wrote the grant proposal on behalf of NCHS.

“We were approached two years ago or more by (now retired Superintendent of Public Works) Jim Laffrenzen,” related Demuth. “They were looking at the band shell, wanted to do some maintenance work on it, and wondered if it would be eligible for the National Register.”

Ultimately, it was decided that if such a designation was to be pursued, it would apply to the entire park, not just the band shell, which was erected in the 1930s as a Works Progress Administration project of the Great Depression.

The park itself has a much longer history, having been donated to the city by the railroad in 1875 and subsequently being a stop on the national Chautauqua cultural program circuit into the 1930s. Among its claims to fame are appearances by the famed evangelist Billy Sunday during such Chautauqua events and a connection to famed aviator Amelia Earhart, who as a young girl spent summers in the park’s vicinity.

Demuth contacted some prospective historians, locating one who had done research on a park and could give him an estimate of what the research would cost for the grant application.

“The first step is to get it declared as eligible for the National Registry of Historic Places, and that’s what the grant is for,” Demuth explained, “to take a look at the history, document the size and dimension of the park, so they can come back and say, ‘Yes, it’s eligible,’ or “No, it’s not for these reasons.’ Once that’s determined, a lot of the legwork will be done with this particular grant, so there will be less work to get it declared, although it will probably take an additional grant to do that.”

The city’s Park Board has already given its blessing to the project, according to Parks Superintendent Scott Rosenberg, so now it’s up to the city council to authorize moving forward with the process. The only possible stumbling block is how such a designation would impact the city’s ability to manage the park. Rosenberg has done his own homework through multiple conversations with people at the State Historic Preservation Office.

“They have indicated to me through all my questioning that if the park is listed … there are going to be parts of the park that are contributing toward its historical significance and parts that are non-contributing,” Rosenberg explained. “One of the non-contributing factors would probably be the modern restroom that we have, and we would be able to maintain it in the same fashion as we have with no additional strings attached. If the bandshell comes back as a contributing factor, then the historical society would like to see us maintain it in the manner in which it was constructed, if any updates or repairs were made to it. If we don’t have any state or federal funding accepted or have any state or federal permits, we can maintain it in the manner that we do now.”

But the advantage of having the park on the National Register of Historic Places would be access to grants to maintain the park’s contributing assets in a manner consistent with their significance.

“In order to make changes consistent with the original construction, we would have to go through an environmental assessment worksheet and mitigation process, and the state historical preservation office would make a recommendation back as to what our options would be other than modern updates and removal of a structure,” Rosenberg said. “If we wanted to change a use in one of those structures that is contributing, we can do that as long as we go through the preservation office. Like in the shelter house, if we wanted to put a small concession in the park, we could utilize a portion of that or the entire structure as a concession operation. They want to try to keep the exterior, main structure, as intact as we can and reuse as much of the material as used.”

Rosenberg said his conversations with state preservation officials have done much to allay any concerns he would have about pursuing a designation. He believes the city would still maintain control over most decisions concerning the property.

“The big benefit I see, if it is on the National Register, it opens us up to be able to apply and accept the larger Legacy Grants,” he said. “Like on the bandshell, if we needed to redo the stage, or reroof it, repaint it, reside it, we could submit a grant for a larger project and get those state dollars coming back into Worthington rather than do it with local tax dollars.”

The Worthington City Council will consider the proposal at 7 p.m. today in the council chambers at City Hall.

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