Ohio History Journal

SHIRLEY LECKIE

 

Brand Whitlock and the

City Beautiful Movement

in Toledo, Ohio

 

 

"We are hearing much of the city beautiful in these days," wrote

Brand Whitlock in 1912. "Hardly a city or a town that has not its

commission and its plans for a unified treatment of its parks, for a

civic center of some sort-in a word, its dream." To Whitlock, who

had recently appointed a second Toledo City Hall and Civic Center

Commission, these were "the expression of that divine craving in

mankind for harmony, for beauty, for order, which is the democratic

spirit."1

The Toledo mayor was an enthusiastic supporter of the beautifica-

tion movement which swept the United States at the turn of the

century. Originating in the earlier park movement, it was, accord-

ing to Charles Robinson, one of its leading practitioners, "immense-

ly strengthened, quickened and encouraged" by the Columbian Ex-

position of 1893.2 The reconstruction of Washington, D.C., in 1902,

based on the rediscovery of L'Enfant's original plan, inspired simi-

lar projects elsewhere.³ While none matched the success of the capi-

tol city, before the movement ran its course, it led to the construc-

tion of civic centers, broad thoroughfares and parks throughout the

United States. The cities that drew up comprehensive plans in-

cluded San Francisco (1905), Los Angeles (1907), New Haven (1910)

and Rochester (1911).⁴ By 1909, however, the movement had

reached its high point, culminating in the publication of Daniel

Burnham's Plan of Chicago, a work that in both concept and scope

 

 

Shirley Leckie is Associate Dean of Continuing Education at Millsaps College.

 

1. Brand Whitlock, "The City and Civilization," Scribners, 52 (November, 1912,),

623.

2. Charles Robinson, "Improvement in City Life: Aesthetic Progressive," Atlantic

Monthly, 83 (June, 1899), 771.

3. John Reps, The Making of Urban America (Princeton, N.J., 1965), 514.

4. Harvey Perloff, Education for Planning: City, State and Regional (Baltimore,

1957), 55.

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6                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

treated Chicago as the center of a region. In its emphasis upon

transportation and circulation, it forecast the direction city plan-

ning would take in the succeeding era of the "city efficient."⁵

Not all of Whitlock's contemporaries shared his enthusiasm for

the city beautiful, and even today, historians and planners remain

divided concerning the movement's significance and contribution.

One of the earliest critics was Louis Sullivan, designer of the Trans-

portation Building, the one deviation from the Beaux-Arts stan-

dards adhered to by all the other buildings at the Columbian Ex-

position. The impact of the Chicago Fair, especially its Court of

Honor, was so profound on the American public that it ushered in

two to three decades of public and monumental architecture domi-

nated by neoclassicism. Sullivan charged that the Fair set back in-

digenous American architecture and substituted "the virus of a cul-

ture, snobbish and alien to the land . . "⁶ Charles Eliot Norton

agreed, noting that the Fair buildings were "magnificent decorative

pieces, but otherwise not architecture." Influenced by Sullivan's

functionalism, he concluded that: "As they often failed to reveal the

purpose of the buildings behind them, so they failed to express the

vital spirit of the nation."⁷

The largely derivative, neoclassical architectural style, however,

was not the most important legacy of the Columbian Exposition.

Both critics and supporters agreed that the Fair demonstrated that

beauty depended largely upon the harmony attained through a uni-

fied treatment of buildings and sites. Daniel Burnham, one of the

Fair's chief architects, stated the principle this way: "There are two

sorts of architectural beauty, first, that of an individual building

and second, that of an orderly and fitting arrangement of many

buildings; the relationship of all the buildings is more important

than anything else."⁸ Americans everywhere took note, contrasting

the serenity of the "White City" with the urban chaos so prevalent

elsewhere. By crystallizing dissatisfaction with existing cities, the

Fair acted as the catalyst for the first large-scale efforts at changing

American cities.⁹

 

 

5. Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett, Plan of Chicago, ed. by Charles Moore

(New York, 1970). Originally published by the Commercial Club of Chicago, 1909.

6. Louis Sullivan, The Autobiography of an Idea (New York, 1956), 325. Originally

published by the American Institute of Architects, 1924.

7. Quoted by Thomas Adams in Outline of Town and City Planning: A Review of

Past Efforts and Modern Aims (New York, 1935), 181.

8. Quoted by Christopher Tunnard and Henry H. Reed in American Skyline (New

York, 1956), 143-44.

9. Roy Lubove, The Progressive and the Slum: Tenement House Reform in New

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Whitlock and the City Beautiful                              7

 

Proponents of the city beautiful movement largely confined their

efforts to downtown sections, thoroughfares, parkways and parks

and, on the whole, ignored the deep-seated problems of housing and

congestion. Even while the Columbian Exposition was still in prog-

ress, a group of settlement workers, attending a conference in Chi-

cago, organized their own exhibit to underscore the contrast be-

tween the "White City" and the all too prevalent slums and tene-

ments in Chicago and elsewhere.10

In 1925 the Committee for Community Planning of the Regional

Plan Association of America, in a Report to the American Institute

of Architects, dismissed the city beautiful movement as "an attempt

to put a pleasing front upon the scrappy buildings, upon the monoto-

nous streets and the mean houses that characterized the larger

American cities." This same Report, moreover, alleged that the

"grand avenues and places were costly beyond measure, and, when

all was said and done, they did not fundamentally alter the environ-

ment in which the greater part of the population, rich and poor,

were still destined to live."11

Finally, many critics have charged that the movement drew its

constituency from middle and upper classes, businessmen's groups

and commerce clubs and, in the end, its appeal was often based on

boosterism, while the values it promoted were commercial, not so-

cial. Adherents of this view cite Daniel Burnham's Plan of Chicago,

originally published by the Commercial Club of Chicago, which con-

tained the following statement: "The plan frankly takes into consid-

eration the fact that the American city, and Chicago predominantly,

is the center of industry and traffic. Therefore attention is given to

the betterment of commercial facilities, the method of transporta-

tion for persons and goods; to removing the obstacles which prevent

or obstruct circulation; and to the increase of convenience." The

needs of workers received attention because: "It is realized also, that

good workmanship requires a large degree of comfort on the part of

the workers in their homes and their surroundings, and ample

opportunity for that rest and recreation without which all becomes

 

 

 

 

York City, 1890-1917 (Pittsburgh, 1962), 217-18.

10. Stanley P.Caine, "Origins of Progressivism," in Louis L. Gould, ed., The Pro-

gressive Era (Syracuse, N.Y., 1974), 25.

11. Committee for Community Planning of the Regional Plan Association of

America, Report to the American Institute of Architects, in Roy Lubove, The Urban

Community: Housing and Planning in the Progressive Era (Englewood, N.J., 1967),

124.

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8                                       OHIO HISTORY

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Whitlock and the City Beautiful                            9

 

drudgery."¹² As one historian would later note, such concerns "be-

tray the values of the businessman."¹³

The city beautiful movement has had its defenders as well as its

critics. The historian Roy Lubove, for example, has viewed the

movement as valuable for a number of reasons. Beginning with the

Chicago Fair, he notes: "However one might disparage the some-

what sterile classicism of the fair, its ultimate influence was salut-

ary. Americans saw in its planned beauty, order and picturesque

design an irresistable alternative to the dirt, monotony and prevad-

ing dinginess of the existing municipalities. This," he contends,

"was the real meaning of the Chicago Fair, it created new ideals and

standards by which to measure the quality of urban life."¹⁴ Else-

where he states: "Probably the most distinctive legacy of the City

Beautiful was the ideal it embodied of the city as a deliberate work

of art."¹⁵ Yet another authority notes: "The symbolic value of the

magnificent fair can hardly be overstated; it encouraged people to

think about their cities as artifacts, and to believe that with suffi-

cient effort and imagination they could be reshaped nearer to im-

ages of civilized living."1⁶ Such a view represented a necessary pre-

condition for the widespread acceptance of a professional city plan-

ning movement and this was the major contribution of the city

beautiful movement. It paved the way for the creation of municipal

planning agencies.

In Toledo, Ohio, largely through the continuing efforts of Sylvan-

us Jermain, the architect E. O. Fallis, and individuals such as Wil-

liam H. Maher, George Stevens, and above all, Mayor Brand Whit-

lock, the drive for the city beautiful accomplished two things: it

perpetuated the older ideals of the park movement and it left in its

wake a city planning commission. It achieved little success, howev-

er, in its major objectives-the establishment of a notable city hall

and an impressive civic center. To a large extent, continuing divi-

sions within the community, both in terms of attitudes and geogra-

phy, worked against these projects. But despite its limited achieve-

ments, the Toledo city beautiful movement merits scrutiny. While a

number of long-held historical generalizations about the movement

 

 

12. Burnham, Plan of Chicago, 4.

13. Mel Scott, American City Planning Since 1890. A History Commemorating the

Fiftieth Anniversary of the American Institute of Planners. (Berkeley. 1969), 107.

14. Lubove, The Progressive and the Slum, 218.

15. Lubove, Urban Community, 9.

16. Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, History of Urban America, 2nd ed.

revised by Charles N. Glaab (New York, 1976), 240.

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10                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

are validated, in Toledo's case some are not. A careful examination

indicates that Brand Whitlock, Toledo's major advocate for civic

beautification, was motivated by ideas that were far more compli-

cated and idealistic than those held by many city beautiful propo-

nents elsewhere.To understand this, one has to begin with Whitlock

and his attitudes toward cities in general.

Whitlock was an enthusiastic supporter of city life. There had

long been a tradition among American intellectuals, dating back

most notably to Thomas Jefferson, that city life was "artificial."¹⁷ In

Toledo, among Whitlock's associates in the beautification move-

ment, S.P. Jermain often argued the need for parks on the basis that

city life was "unnatural."¹⁸ Whitlock disagreed-not on the need for

parks, but on the character of life in municipalities.To Toledo's

mayor, the city was "the most natural thing in the world, an

elemental form of human association like the family or tribe, built

in obedience to some divine, if obscure instinct."¹⁹ This was true, he

explained elsewhere, because: "Mankind is gregarious. People love

to live together and so all down through history, we find them

crowding together on small acres of land ..."²⁰ Moreover, not only

did Whitlock accept cities as natural, but he was at times almost

evangelical concerning their benefits. It was in the city that man

would "free himself from the slavery of an obdurate isolation and

from the thraldom of primitive fear." It was the city that repre-

sented "the symbol of his titanic effort to conquer nature." And

finally, it was in the city that man achieved the necessary security

and found the opportunity "to rise above the merely physical, and to

release the spirit to higher flights."²¹ In short, to Whitlock the city

and civilization were coterminous.

In this, Whitlock was not original. He echoed often the ideas of

other progressives, especially those of Frederick Howe whose works

he not only read, but reread many times. Whitlock referred con-

 

 

 

17. Morton and Lucia White, The Intellectual Versus the City: From Thomas Jef-

ferson to Frank Lloyd Wright (Cambridge, Mass., 1962).

18. Jermain constantly referred to city life as "artificial" or "unnatural" through-

out the 1890s and early 1900s. By 1909 he had not changed his mind. See: Sylvanus

P. Jermain, personal letter to Emma K. Rinehart dated 12 May, 1909, S.P. Jermain

Collection, Personal Correspondence in Local History Room of the Toledo Public

Library (hereafter referred to as Jermain Collection).

19. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 631.

20. Brand Whitlock, "Toledo-Its City and Its People," Speech delivered in Toledo,

Ohio, on 27 February 1906, 3. Located in Brand Whitlock Papers in Library of

Congress, Washington, D.C. (hereafter referred to as Whitlock Papers).

21. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 629.

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Whitlock and the City Beautiful                              11

 

stantly, for example, to Howe's "excellent book," The City: The Hope

of Democracy, and agreed wholeheartedly with the book's thesis,

stated in its title.²² Whitlock elaborated on this in various writings.

In 1912 he reasoned that since cities were "microcosms" of the larg-

er society, "in them the cleavages that divide society are easily

beheld, the problems that weary mankind are somehow reduced to

simpler factors .. ."²³ Thus it made sense that in an urban setting

America's problems could be most easily identified and eventually

resolved. Two years later in his autobiographical work he made this

comment regarding Tom Johnson, the progressive Cleveland mayor:

"I do not know how much of history he had read, but he knew

intuitively that the city in all ages has been the outpost of civiliza-

tion and if the problem of democracy is to be solved at all, it is to be

solved first in the city."²⁴ This possibility inspired Whitlock; it had,

he thought, implications, not only for the United States but for the

entire world as well, and this led him to prophesize in 1912:

"Already we apprehend a new truth, that in the inspiring tendency

of the neo-democratic spirit there is to be realized not only aesthetic,

but an ethic beauty, and the time is foreshadowed when our cities

will be beautiful in works, in their spirits and in the common lot and

in the individuality, the personality of their citizens." Then he

added his own statement of the old idea of the "city upon a hill."

"And thence from the city into the state and from the state into the

nation, is it, in this old and moody and nervous age, too much to

hope?-from the nation into the world. It is the dream of America, at

any rate, the goal of democracy and the purpose of civilization."²⁵

Before the American city could represent a beacon to the rest of

the world, however, it was necessary that it become what Whitlock

termed the "free city." He described this freedom in a number of

ways. From the practical standpoint, the necessary precondition for

a free city was, of course, a free citizenship, and this required the

advancement of democratic principles and reforms. Viewed politi-

cally, the free city would no longer be subservient to a rural-

dominated legislature, nor would it continue to be administered by

political machines financed by corrupt businessmen. Instead it

 

 

22. Ibid, 626. See also other references such as Brand Whitlock, "Patriotism vs.

Partyism: A Straight Conscience vs. a Straight Vote," Saturday Evening Post, 179 (17

November 1906), 9; Brand Whitlock, Forty Years of It (New York, 1925), 1973. Origi-

nally published in 1914.

23. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 633.

24. Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 172

25. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 633.

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12                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

would enjoy home rule, embrace the principles of nonpartisanship,

and would achieve municipal ownership of utility and traction

companies.²⁶ At a deeper, moral level, however, Whitlock believed

that cities, like men, possessed their own unique characters. On one

occasion he was quoted in the popular press explicitly on this point.

"Cities have personalities, just as men have; and cities must be left

free to realize these personalities."²⁷ Moreover, the truly free city

like the truly free person would be essentially moral, obeying its

own internal, freely chosen moral code, based on an understanding

of the "law of social relations."²⁸ For that matter, cities would play

an instrumental role in the uncovering and illumination of this law.

Whitlock stated it this way: "The cities are the centers of the na-

tion's thought, the citadels of its liberties, and, as they were once

and originally the trading posts and the stockades whence the hardy

pioneers began their conquest of the physical domain of the conti-

nent, so are they now the outposts whence mankind is to set forth on

a new conquest of the spiritual world in which the law of social

relations is to be discovered and applied."²⁹ Once this was achieved,

then the "free city" would provide a setting in which men would

become free, not simply as citizens, but as persons. In 1907 he had

summarized his views in this statement: "We want cities that will

be filled with free civic spirit, expressing itself in artistic forms;

above all cities that will be better, kindlier places to live in, cities

that will offer to every man on equal terms the opportunity to live a

beautiful life-that is, to realize his own personality. For this is the

great purpose of democracy-to let every man realize his own

personality."³⁰

Whitlock was both more cautious and critical in his thought and

expression and more reserved in his bearing and personality than

his predecessor Samuel Jones had been. Nonetheless, it is obvious

that at this stage of his life he maintained an optimistic faith in

democratic progress. Evidence of this is found in his autobiographi-

cal work Forty Years of It, in which he wrote, for example: ". . . it is

the vast strain, the irresistable urge of democracy to render life

 

 

26. Whitlock, "Patriotism vs. Partyism," 8; See also "The Free City," Saturday

Evening Post, 180 (6 June 1908), 3-5, and comments by Jack Tager, The Intellectual

as Urban Reformer: Brand Whitlock and the Progressive Movement (Cleveland, 1968),

79, 145-46, 181.

27. Whitlock, "Patriotism vs. Partyism," 8.

28. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 633; Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 366-67.

29. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 633.

30. Again see Tager, The Intellectual as Urban Reformer, 79.

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Whitlock and the City Beautiful                            13

 

more equal, more secure, more precious in obedience to an instinct

that grows less and less obscure, as amid the perplexities of life,

reason and the good-will of men discern a better purpose, a better

order and a better way."³¹

For Whitlock, the city played a crucial role in advancing this

progress. The interdependence of urban life created both the ne-

cessity and the opportunity for men to come together, share ideas,

seek solutions and finally overcome the "hard selfishness of unres-

trained individualism."³² This had been Howe's recurrent theme in

his most famous work on the American city, and it was an idea that

Whitlock wholeheartedly embraced.

Whitlock's study of history, combined with his reading of Howe,

convinced him that the development of great cities followed an evo-

lutionary path. In February 1906, shortly after becoming mayor, he

shared his ideas on city development in an address entitled "Tole-

do-Its City and Its People." The speech, beginning with the words

"Toledo has reached a crisis in her development," represented a call

to begin beautifying the city, specifically by constructing a notable

city hall as the focal point for an impressive civic center.

There was, Whitlock thought, echoing Howe's ideas on civic im-

provement, a natural, but not inevitable, progression in the history

of cities. First came the physical development of the area, a period in

which a "large population crowded together on one piece of ground"

and in which eventually there were "many streets crossing each

other with houses on them and people living in the houses, coming

and going and bustling about them with a great business." At this

stage the town still exhibited a good many "provincial characteris-

tics," the citizens displayed a "village" outlook, and, in general, it

was difficult to begin and complete municipal projects because the

citizenry lacked what Whitlock, quoting Howe, termed a "city

sense." This was the stage Toledo had reached in its development.³³

Whitlock never really succeeded in defining the "city sense" with

any precision. As late as 1912 he still found the idea somewhat

nebulous. "It is something vague and dim, unrealized as yet, some-

thing difficult to describe, perhaps impossible to define." Yet it

struck him as extremely important. "It is something more than

civicism, or the sense of solidarity, or mass consciousness; it is the

 

 

 

31. Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 371.

32. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 631.

33. Whitlock, "Toledo-Its City and Its People." For Whitlock's indebtedness to

Frederick C. Howe, see The City: The Hope of Democracy (Seattle, 1967), 239-48.

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14                                              OHIO HISTORY

expression of the common hopes and ardors of mankind . ."³⁴ In his

1906 speech before Toledoans, Whitlock did not attempt to give a

definition, but he did inform his listeners that it was the one prereq-

uisite to the building of a true city: "Before there can be a city, there

must be the 'city sense'," adding, "Toledo is big enough to take on

the airs of a city, not as a mere affectation, but because the problems

that confront the multitudes of people who compose a city cannot be

solved unless there be unity and collective effort. The people must

be inspired by a single ideal, and all other things must be subsidiary

to the achievement of this ideal."³⁵

Prior to the emergence of the "city sense," Toledo, like other

municipalities, would remain fixed in that stage in which citizens

devoted their energies and efforts to simply obtaining commercial

prosperity. Elsewhere he explained that this was the period in

which men viewed their city "merely as a place to make a living but

not to live in."³⁶ By 1906 Toledo was "large and prosperous and

wealthy," and it was time for the city to take the next step and begin

"to build in the municipal sense." After all, he had observed Toledo's

character and personality, and he was convinced that the city pos-

sessed "a great and free spirit . . . I believe," Whitlock told his

audience, "that the time has come when Toledo must begin to real-

ize her own individuality, and it is important, I think, that we take

counsel and decide how this shall be done."³⁷

There were a number of concerns that demanded immediate

attention. The city needed a larger police force, a more efficient

health department, while its social agencies were, the new mayor

warned Toledoans, "woefully behind the times." He termed the

workhouse "an anachronism and a shame" and the city prison "a

disgrace." There still existed no municipally owned hospital, no cen-

ter for the treatment of tuberculosis, and little in the way of agen-

cies to care for orphans or to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents.³⁸ Yet

critical as all these needs were, the purpose of Mayor Whitlock's

speech was to arouse Toledoans to the necessity of making their city

more beautiful.

He noted that it was commonly agreed that the time had come for

the city to construct a new bridge over the Maumee. Civic pride also

dictated that Toledo build a number of new municipal buildings, for

 

34. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 631.

35. Whitlock, "Toledo-Its City and Its People," 1.

36. Whitlock, "City and Civilization," 631.

37. Whitlock, "Toledo-Its City and Its People," 1-2.

38. Ibid, 2-3.

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Whitlock and the City Beautiful                             15

 

there existed only one municipal building "worthy of the name," and

that was the courthouse constructed in 1897. Moreover, Toledo rep-

resented an anomaly among cities; it had no city hall. "The city

today is living in rented quarters that are as inadequate in the space

they provide as they are unworthy of the dignity of a municipality

that makes any municipal pretensions." The cost of renting space

for city offices was increasing annually, and given this situation

prudence dictated building a city hall as quickly as possible. Since

this was the case, Whitlock argued that "splendid results" could be

"obtained and magnified many fold if the city hall and the bridge

and other public buildings that must be erected-the police stations,

fire houses, schools-are part of one comprehensive scheme that

embraces the whole city and includes its parks, its boulevards, its

playgrounds, and its water front."³⁹ Whitlock had grasped the cen-

tral idea of the city beautiful movement, with its emphasis upon the

construction of monumental civic structures, designed to harmonize

architecturally as part of a comprehensive plan. At the very least,

attention was given to the landscape architecture of the building

sites and the surrounding areas. The more ambitious projects, such

as Chicago's Plan of 1909, dealt extensively with the development of

parks, boulevards and parkways, especially those along the lake

shore.⁴⁰

To bolster his arguments, Whitlock reminded his listeners of the

history of the world's great cities. "Athens was a commercial center

long before Pericles and Phidias crowned her with those works of

municipal art that have since been the inspiration and despair of all

citizens." A similar pattern had developed in Rome, later in Venice,

Florence, Milan, and even later in Vienna, Munich and Frankfort,

among other notable cities. More recently in the United States, in

Washington, the dream of L'Enfant and Jefferson was "now slowly

being realized in concrete and material form." Elsewhere other

cities had been inspired, and in New York, San Francisco, Kansas

City, Cleveland and even in Springfield, Illinois, "this same city

sense is expressing itself in the form of movements for a unitifed

treatment of public buildings."⁴¹

 

 

39. Ibid, 3-4.

40. Burnham, Plan of Chicago. In this 1970 edition by DeCapo Press, there is an

excellent introduction from the original Commercial Club edition by Wilbert R. Has-

brouck. On page viii Hasbrouck discusses the long-term results of Burnham's plans

for the lake shore as they would be realized over time in the Chicago metropolitan

region.

41. Whitlock, "Toledo-Its City and Its People," 3-4.

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16                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

Whitlock then turned to the major point of his address. "It seems

to me, therefore, and I wish to propose to you tonight, that the time

is auspicious for the city of Toledo to decide upon some definite,

artistic and beautiful plan for the construction of these public build-

ings which are inevitable, if this city is to maintain its growth and

fulfill the predictions we have so long been making for her." He was

not, he reminded his listeners, "insensible to the many obstacles,"

but he expressed confidence that . . . "if other cities can overcome

them, we can overcome them. In the very process of overcoming

them," he added, "we shall increase our own strength and effective-

ness and intensify the spirit of unity, the wholesome spirit that

must make what has been called the city sense."⁴²

Thus to Whitlock, the building of a city hall.as the nucleus of a

civic center represented the physical manifestation of an ideal he

sought for Toledo. It arose not simply from boosterism, although

there were comparisons with other municipalities and references to

a national movement in which he hoped Toledo would participate.

Rather, Whitlock viewed "municipal art" or "municipal adornment"

(he used both terms interchangeably) as expressions of "democracy

in artistic forms." Above all, the very act of building a city hall and

civic center would contribute to the growth of the vital "city sense,"

and after its completion, the existence of these commonly-owned

and beautiful buildings would both nurture and strengthen that

essential requirement for the growth of a great city.

To accomplish this, he called for a commission "whose duty it

should be to consider this question." He charged it with the task of

soliciting ideas from Toledo citizens, investigating the progress of

other cities, and finally directed it "to secure the services of artists

and architects who have had experience in this work elsewhere, and

before it is too late, to decide on some plan to which we propose to

adhere in the future."

As a beginning, he advocated the submission of a three to five

million dollar bond issue to the voters, and at the same time warned

citizens that if they failed to act "the opportunity will have forever

passed, and Toledo will be outstripped in the race for municipal

prominence by other cities that are not blessed with half her natural

advantages," adding: "When we have such a place as this, or such as

they have in Washington, or in New York, or in Cleveland, or in

Boston, then our ideal has already taken concrete form and we can

begin to work toward it, and to live up to it; and finally," he noted,

 

 

42. Ibid, 4-5.

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Whitlock and the City Beautiful                           17

 

"long after we have gone away, of course, there will be here a city in

which the ideal of democracy will be realized; a city that shall help

every one of its citizens to lead a kind, helpful and beautiful life." At

the conclusion of his speech, he again emphasized the importance he

assigned to such a project. "If we are to enlarge our cities, we must

enlarge our ideas and our ideals, and sectionalism and provincial-

ism must be left behind. We must think in urban sequences, and in a

word, if we would have a city, we must build a city."⁴³

Whitlock seized any opportunity he could to advance his ideas on

Toledo's need for civic beautification. When his young friend Fran-

cis Macomber, the Director of Public Safety, died in 1908, a memo-

rial service in January of the following year seemed an appropriate

occasion, especially since Macomber had shared Whitlock's views on

beautification and had prepared his own plans for a civic center.⁴⁴ In

his address, Whitlock praised Macomber's interest and his contribu-

tion to the further development of Toledo's parks, playgrounds and

the city beautiful ideal. To a large extent, the city beautiful move-

ment continued the work begun by the older park movement, keep-

ing alive its hopes for "breathing spots" within the city and stres-

sing the importance of incorporating rural aspects into the city

proper.⁴⁵ A new emphasis had been added, however, visible in the

stress on harmony, unity and coordination. The older idea that art,

combined with nature, would act as teacher and uplifter for the

masses was still accepted, and the way in which older and newer

ideas were blending can be seen in Whitlock's eulogy for his friend.

"He thought that the activities of a city should be so coordinated

that they would present a vision of harmony, and in the vast scheme

which he planned of parks and playgrounds and groups of public

buildings and al that-there were to be for all the people the benison

of healing, of music, of all the arts."⁴⁶

Four years later, Whitlock made similar comments at the funeral

of William H. Maher, a prominent Toledoan. Like Macomber, Mah-

er had given the mayor support in his beautification projects and, in

addition, he had served on both the 1910 and 1912 City Hall and

Civic Center Commissions. In this eulogy, Whitlock again re-

counted the many civic contributions Maher had made, noting espe-

cially his efforts at arousing interest in improving Toledo's appear-

 

 

43. Ibid, 4-6.

44. Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 208.

45. Lubove, Urban Community, 9.

46. Brand Whitlock, "Remarks at Memorial Service for Franklin Smith Macomber

at Zenobia Theatre," Toledo, Ohio, 3 January 1909, Whitlock Papers.

• 13
 

18                                                  OHIO HISTORY

 

ance, stating, "... the end of his labors was to present to the city

fathers a plan for the improvement of the physical order of the

town," a plan that Whitlock held would express in physical form

"the worth and character and the beauty of that town."⁴⁷

Throughout these writings and in his autobiographical work Forty

Years of It there was one other recurrent theme. Whitlock constant-

ly referred to the hope of transforming the American city into the

New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City here on earth. Again, there was

nothing original about this. Other progressives, especially those

who were proponents of the Social Gospel, such as the clergyman

Washington Gladden, had expressed similar hopes based on old

Christian themes and ideas, revived to bolster and invigorate the

progressive crusade to reform American city life.⁴⁸ Moreover, de-

spite the differences in intellectual sophistication and personality,

Whitlock had been deeply influenced by his mentor and friend,

Samuel Jones. Jones' speeches, as Whitlock frankly acknowledged,

were sermons. Thus perhaps it is not surprising that at times Whit-

lock also gave what can be termed secular sermons rather than

speeches, and, like Jones, reached back into Christian thought and

traditions to describe his own hopes as a progressive.⁴⁹ The follow-

ing passage from the Memorial Service for Macomber gives some

evidence of this strain in Whitlock's thought. Referring to Macom-

ber, Whitlock stated: "Practical as he was, he was essentially an

idealist, and he had a dream of a whole beautiful city in which men

would be equals and brothers, a city of loving friends." Then he

added what would become for him a constant theme. "It was an old

dream, the oldest dream in the world; to the mystic John on Patmos,

it was as a city that Heaven was revealed, a city symmetrical and

complete ... it is the beautiful dream of democracy and brother-

hood, a dream which will come true in America when men can

envisage it as it appeared in the imagination of Franklin

Macomber."⁵⁰ Whitlock's funeral oration for Maher touched the

 

47. Brand Whitlock, "Remarks at Funeral of William H. Maher," 4 February 1913,

Toledo, Ohio, Whitlock Papers.

48. Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 374; Thomas Kail, "Urban Visions and Visionaries:

Responses to the Rise of the Industrial City," (Ph.D. dissertation, The University of

Toledo, 1975), 125.

49. Whitlock described in considerable detail the strong impact Jones made on his

life in a number of writings, most notably Forty Years of It, 112-51. In a short essay

"Golden Rule Jones" in The World's Work, September 1904, 5308-11, Whitlock de-

scribed the effect of Jones' speeches: "And so it was that the stranger happening into

a Jones meeting might have supposed that it was a religious meeting, or at least a

revival . . ."

50. Whitlock, "Remarks at Memorial Service for Franklin Smith Macomber,"

• 14
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                               19

same themes. "There had come to him the conception of a city, a

conception hidden from the minds of many persons, as a place where

all its people might find life beautiful and splendid, if only inequali-

ties might be lessened and privileges and immunities done away."⁵¹

Whether these men shared Whitlock's fervent enthusiasm is im-

possible to say. The constant reference to the city as a dream so

idealistically expressed probably revealed more about Toledo's pro-

gressive mayor than the individuals he was praising. By 1914, in

the concluding paragraphs of Forty Years of It, he returned to the

same theme and expressed it in similar ways:

... For the great dream beckons, leads them on, the dream of social

harmony always prefigured in human thought as the city. This radiant

vision of the city is the oldest dream in the world. All literature is saturated

with it. It has been the ideal of human achievement since the day when the

men of the plains of Shinar sought to build a city whose towers should reach

unto heaven. It was the angelic vision of the mystic on Patmos, the city

descending out of heaven, and lying foursquare, the city where there was to

be no more sorrow nor crying....52

 

Whitlock was not the first Toledo mayor to campaign actively for

a city hall, nor was he the last. His predecessor, Samuel Jones, had

felt the need keenly, and in 1899 had devoted a part of his annual

Mayor's Message to the topic. To Jones, as to Whitlock several years

later, renting was impractical, since the cost increased each year.

More important, however, there was the question of public dignity.

If a city were truly great, it would have proper quarters in which to

conduct its business.

While Jones did not advance the idea of building a civic center, he

did propose that the city hall should be placed in a spacious setting,

leaving room for public gatherings such as speeches, band concerts

and other recreational and educational public events. To expedite

this, Jones announced that he, the City Solicitor, the City Clerk,

and a representative from the Board of Alderman and two from the

Common Council had determined that the most desirable site lay

between Adams, Madison, Michigan and Ontario Streets.⁵³

 

 

 

Toledo, Ohio, 3 January 1909, Whitlock Papers.

51. Whitlock, "Remarks at Maher Funeral," Toledo, Ohio, 4 February 1913, Whit-

lock Papers.

52. Whitlock, Forty Years of It, 374.

53. Samuel Jones, "Mayor's Message," Annual Statement of the Finances of Tole-

do: Together with the Mayor's Message and Reports of the Various Departments for the

Year Ending April 1st, 1900 By Order of the Council (Toledo, 1900), 20-21. Located in

• 15
 

20                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

A year later, Jones returned to the subject in his 1900 Mayor's

Message, and this time he based his appeal on grounds different

from those of public dignity of practicality. A city hall would stand

as physical evidence of Toledo's community spirit, he informed his

audience, since this would be one building owned in common by all

city inhabitants. "There is a real dignity underlying the idea of

democratic equality to which our system of government is commit-

ted. We are all equals only at the ballot box as yet, but we must

actualize the idea of equality, and there is no way that we can better

do this than by enlarging the scope of common ownership." A well

constructed city hall would contribute, moreover, to both "civic

pride" and "the spirit of patriotism." In this light, it seemed obvious

to Jones that "Toledo should not occupy renter quarters beyond the

term of the present lease."⁵⁴

No progress was made toward building a civic center during Jo-

nes's administration primarily because most of Toledo's residents

and council members gave priority to the construction of a new

Cherry Street Bridge. Since 1890 a number of bridge plans had been

advanced; none of them gained the support of the entire community.

Those that were given serious, if often momentary, consideration

encountered lawsuits, and thus the matter of building a new bridge

dragged before the City Council for well over a decade. In April

1906, Mayor Whitlock reluctantly approved City Council's recom-

mendations for a straight bridge, beginning at Cherry Street on the

west side and extending to Main Street on the east side, a steel

structure, eighty-two-and-a-half feet wide with a projected cost of

$665,000. The mayor expressed his disappointment, stating that he

had favored building a U-shaped bridge that would have followed

the lines of the Jackson Street Viaduct. But he did not veto the

measure since he hoped that by signing the legislation, the bridge

would be completed as rapidly as possible.⁵⁵ Instead, the proposed

bridge aroused new controversy, resulting in lengthy lawsuits, and

it was not until March 1910 that the legal impediments were re-

moved and construction actually began. By this time the projected

cost had risen to about one million dollars, while the date set for

completion was optimistically given as 1913.56 The bridge opened a

 

 

 

the Local History Room of the Toledo Public Library I hereafter referred to as Annual

Report (1899)].

54. Samuel Jones, "Mayor's Message," Annual Report (1900), 17.

55. Toledo Blade, 19 April 1906.

56. Toledo Blade, 26 March 1910.

• 16
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                       21

year later in 1914, while construction work continued for another three years. Despite the many problems that had plagued its completion, the bridge, designed by architect Arnold W. Brunner, received national publicity and widespread praise. the American City extolled the concrete structure, which was 1,200 feet long and designed with a central span allowing for a clear channel of 200 feet, as "an example for other cities, proving as it does that a bridge may be absolutely useful and at the same time a thing of beauty."57 Whitlock's interest in the city beautiful movement had preceded his electon as mayor of Toledo. He had first raised the issue publicly in a speech given at Memorial Hall in 1902 and had returned to the subject in an address delivered two years later at the Toledo Club. In     57. "Toledo Spain and Toledo, Ohio," American City, 11 (August, 1914), 116-17.

• 17
 

22                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

July 1906 and again in January 1907, he had brought the matter

before the City Council, but it appeared that Council did not share

the mayor's interest.⁵⁸ He did, however, enjoy the support of indi-

vidual Toledoans, such as E. O. Fallis, the architect, and George

Stevens, the Director of the Toledo Museum of Art. Fallis, for exam-

ple, had drawn up fairly elaborate and painstaking plans for a civic

center as early as 1904, selecting a site on Jackson Street, across

from the courthouse, at that time Toledo's only impressive public

building.⁵⁹

In March 1907, George Stevens arranged a public exhibition at

the Toledo Museum of Art, devoted entirely to the results of the city

beautiful movement elsewhere. Among the displays were models of

Washington, St. Louis, Buffalo, San Francisco, and, closer to home,

Cleveland. New plans drawn up by Fallis were also shown, under

the auspices of the Toledo Architectural Club.⁶⁰ Fallis' newest civic

center design was both more ambitious and extensive than the ear-

lier one had been. In 1904 he had located the civic center between

Jackson, Cherry, Tenth and Huron Streets, placing the city hall

northwest of Courthouse Square and the police headquarters be-

tween Spielbusch and Canton. The original plans had called for a

new public library to be built east of the civic center mall, and

beyond that, an art museum, while on the slope below Cherry

Street, he had proposed that the city erect a new large auditorium.

These earliest plans had only envisioned the widening of Jackson

Street at one end of the proposed new Cherry Street Bridge. By

1907, however, Fallis's revisions included widening Beech Street

into a boulevard and joining Summit, Cherry and St. Clair into a

circular drive.⁶¹

Francis Macomber had also drawn up plans for a civic center.

Shortly after his death in 1908, Sylvanus Jermain, a prominent

Toledoan active in the park movement, presented them to the

mayor.⁶² In an open letter, dated May 12, 1908, to Emma K. Rine-

hart, a Toledo woman active in the Playground Association, Jer-

main called upon the Board of Park Commissioners to begin acquir-

ing land in the core of the city between the Courthouse and Cherry

 

 

 

58. Toledo Blade, 13 April 1912.

59. John M. Killets, Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio 1623-1923. 3 vols. (Chicago,

1923), 510:I.

60. Toledo Blade, 22 March 1906, 23 March 1907, 24 March 1907.

61. Toledo Blade, 24 February 1911; Toledo City Journal, 7 (8 July 1922), 289.

62. Killets, Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, 510:1.

• 18
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                               23

 

Street, and additional land on the east side on Front Street adjoin-

ing the site of the proposed new high school.⁶³

Shortly after this, at the City Council meeting of May 24, 1909,

Mayor Whitlock announced that, following Jermain's open letter, he

had received a message from the Board of Park Commissioners,

calling for a meeting of all municipal department heads. Its purpose

was to consider placing before Toledo voters a bond issue sufficient

to build a city hall, civic center and complete the park and boulevard

system and any other matters "deemed advisable." The City Council

passed a resolution, requesting the mayor to appoint a City Hall

Commission to first study the proposed projects.64

Mayor Whitlock selected a group of well-known Toledoans which

included William H. Maher, Harry T. Batch, George B. Rheinfrank,

John Ulmer and Sylvanus P. Jermain.⁶⁵ The commission issued its

report to the Mayor on March 28, 1910, in a document which began:

 

Every citizen is in most hearty sympathy with any wish and effort that is

made towards making Toledo a City Beautiful. A similar civic spirit is

quickening the whole country, and all thinking men and women agree that

they not only owe it to themselves, and to their children, but succeeding

generations, that their surroundings should appeal to the senses, and that

the spirit of beauty, as well as of utility, shall guide the community in its

plans for the future.⁶⁶

 

It was unfortunate, the report continued, that the original city

fathers had not seen fit to set aside adequate space "for breathing

and recreation grounds and for locations for public buildings that

every growing city must possess." This had resulted in lost opportu-

nities and meant, moreover, that the costs would be far greater now

that these problems were being rectified at a later date. Despite

this, the commission cautioned that further delay would only add to

the future burden of debt, and, in this light, any further postpone-

ment of Toledo's building needs was viewed as "not only unwise, but

... impossible."⁶⁷

 

 

 

63. Sylvanus P. Jermain, personal letter dated 12 May 1909, in S.P. Jermain

Collection.

64. "Minutes of the Toledo Park Commissioners," 15 June 1909. Located on Micro-

film in the Northwest Ohio Regional Center, Bowling Green State University.

65. Toledo City Journal, 7 (8 July 1922), 289.

66. "Report of the City Hall Commission Made to Mayor Whitlock and By Him

Transmitted to the Common Council," Sylvanus P. Jermain "Scrapbook," 221, Jer-

main Collection.

67. Ibid.

• 19
 

24                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

The commission's report advised the city to acquire, through

purchase or condemnation, the property bounded by Beech, Erie,

Jackson and Spielbusch Avenues. Estimating the value of this prop-

erty at $325,000, it advised the city to construct a city hall at a

projected cost of $350,000. A more ambitious plan, calling for the

purchase of an additional four blocks north of the courthouse in

order to build a Cherry Street city hall, had been discarded as im-

practical due to the "great expense and our heavy burden of debt."

Instead the commission's report called for erecting the city hall

north of the Court House Square in the two blocks between Jackson,

Erie, Beech and Spielbusch. As for the police headquarters, the

report recommended the placement of a safety building north of the

county jail near Beech Street.⁶⁸

In his report to the council on April 18, Whitlock endorsed the

document fully, reminding the City Council that a city hall as the

basis for a civic center was not simply a place to conduct the city's

business, but rather: "It is primarily for the people, and it should

reflect the people's aspirations, their identity and their spirits."

Then he added: "it should bring forth in a material form the city's

pesonality and be constructed, not for utility alone, but with higher

purposes of art and beauty. It should be," he concluded, "the city's

center and heart, with beautiful and imposing surroundings. It

should be a place in which the people find joy and pride and become

an inspiring and ennobling influence on the community."⁶⁹

That November, Toledo voters approved a $360,000 bond issue,

and the first bonds totalling $300,000 were sold in January 1911.

When the first land appropriation bills passed the City council in

February, it appeared that Whitlock's hopes for a civic center would

soon be realized.⁷⁰ The Mayor now enjoyed the support of a number

of groups, including the Toledo Civic Federation and the Commerce

Club. These two organizatons, in fact, had done much to ensure the

passage of the November bond issue, and it was largely due to their

efforts that Arnold Brunner, a leading architect actively involved in

Cleveland, Baltimore and Rochester beautification projects, arrived

in the city early in February.⁷¹

Brunner spoke to a number of local groups, showing slides of

improvements in European and American cities and restating the

 

 

68. Ibid.

69. Toledo Blade, 19 April 1910

70. Killets, Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, 510:I.

71. Toledo Blade, 2 February 1911.

• 20
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                          25

 

common themes of the park and city beautiful movements. Such

projects, he assured Toledoans, were not undemocratic. To the con-

trary: "Art isn't for the rich man exclusively, for the rich man can

buy it and take it home. Art ought to be where the poor man can

have it close." In this sense he praised the preliminary work com-

pleted by the Toledo City Hall Commission; its members had laid

the foundation for Toledo's civic renaissance. Brunner did find it

unfortunate, however, that Toledo had waited this long to begin

such an undertaking, for one of the costs of postponement was a lack

of coordination among the city's various improvements. An example

of this was the new Museum of Art, currently under construction at

the corner of Monroe and Scottwood, which should have been a part

of the proposed civic center. His advice to Toledoans was that in the

future they should keep their city offices closer together for both

convenience and beauty. He also commented on the city's downtown

area, noting the relatively narrow major thoroughfares, and, for this

reason, warned against building additional skyscrapers. Not only

would they further decrease the amount of light and the number of

trees in the city, but the additional traffic generated would overtax

the capacity of the surrounding streets.⁷²

Finally, at his last public speech, delivered at the Memorial Hall

Annex, Brunner concluded with this statement: "Toledo has an

opportunity for a civic center equalled by no other city in America,

and," he added in remarks similar to those made twelve years before

by the landscape architect George Kessler during his visit to Toledo,

"the same may be said of the possibilities of beautifying her water-

front." The new thrust towards the emerging science of city plan-

ning was evident in his final words. "In the building of a city, it is a

crime not to plan for the future. A scheme for the future means

economy."⁷³

In March, Memorial Hall was the scene of an exhibit displaying

the plans for Toledo's proposed civic center, the new Cherry Street

Bridge, which was under construction, and a projected continuation

of the park and boulevard system. This exhibit, largely the result of

the efforts of Mayor Whitlock, celebrated Toledo as a "progressive"

city and included "a report, as it were," according to the Survey, "of

the elected directors and public agents of Toledo." Its purpose was to

acquaint citizens with the fifteen different departments overseeing

 

 

 

72. Ibid.

73. Toledo Blade, 4 February 1911.

• 21
 

26                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

the various municipal functions and to give Toledoans a better idea

of developments planned for the future.⁷⁴

The progress towards the building of a city hall and civic center

was more apparent than real. Even as the first City Hall Commis-

sion met, other Toledoans were calling attention to another long-

standing and increasingly serious municipal problem. As Toledo

had grown, annexing what had formerly been independent com-

munities, there had emerged three distinct sections to the city-

east, west, and south, all separated from one another by either the

Maumee River or the meandering course of Swan Creek. Moreover,

passage from one part of the city to another was impeded by traffic

congestion occurring at certain critical points. The new Cherry

Street Bridge would eventually alleviate the congestion between

Summit Street on the west bank and Main Street on the east. It

would, however, have little effect on the traffic problems encoun-

tered in going from Summit Street to Broadway, the south side's

major thoroughfare.⁷⁵

For decades thoughtful Toledoans had sought to eliminate some

part of Swan Creek as a first step towards the straightening of

Summit Street. The lengthy jog between Summit and Broadway,

characterized as the south side's "Chinese Wall," represented a se-

rious impediment to the free flow of traffic from Toledo's business

district to the rapidly expanding neighborhoods to the south. As

early as 1870 a councilman from the Fifth Ward had proposed shift-

ing Swan Creek's channel eastward, filling in its west band and

extending Summit Street through to Broadway.⁷⁶

At that date there was still considerable traffic on the old Miami

and Erie Canal, but by the twentieth century much of this had died

out and the canal bed now emptied into the creek. By 1908 a group

calling itself the South Side Improvement Association demanded

the elimination of the rest of the canal bed and Swan Creek within

the city limits. In a resolution addressed to City Council, the Asso-

ciation proposed the diversion of both streams through Delaware

Creek above Walbridge Park. Furthermore, the plan was both feasi-

ble and advantageous, for the city would be spared, among other

things, the cost of maitaining bridges over the two streams. The

improvement would result, moreover, in reclaimed land, which,

 

74. James P. Heaton, "Budget Exhibits in Two Cities, "Survey, 26 (April, 1911),

135.

75. See Toledo News-Bee, 28 November 1912, which contains a lengthy interview

with Dan Segur, the son of a southside councilman.

76. Toledo News-Bee, 28 November 1912; Toledo Times, 5 February 1913.

• 22
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                             27

 

given the area's excellent railroad facilities, would provide a desir-

able site for wholesale and warehousing establishments. More im-

portant, it would permit the straightening of Summit Street as well

as the extension of Superior, thereby tying south and west Toledo

directly together for the first time. Finally, south-siders noted that

the Lake Shore Railroad had indicated its willingness to begin plan-

ning for a new and impressive Union Station, once the area in

question had been improved and Summit Street had been

straightened.⁷⁷

While these considerations were all important, the major impetus

for the elimination of Swan Creek stemmed from the fact that the

stream had become "an open sewer." In the nineteenth century, lum-

ber yards and saw mills had lined its banks just below Summit

Street. By 1900 this activity had diminished, leaving behind un-

sightly decaying wharves and buildings.⁷⁸ As south Toledo's popula-

tion expanded, the creek received increasing amounts of sewage and

industrial waste. One authority estimated that by 1911 as many as

six million gallons of sewage emptied into the torturous and slow

moving steam on a daily basis. Droughts were not uncommon dur-

ing the summer months, and when the water level fell, area resi-

dents found that their environmental problems were exacerbated.⁷⁹

By the summer of 1910 the problem had assumed crisis propor-

tions. Angry south-siders met frequently, voicing their demands

that the city take immediate action. To further their cause they

passed a resolution appealing to the State Board of Health to in-

vestigate the situation. One Colonel J. C. Bonner spoke for many

residents when he warned: "Toledo will never be a great city until

Swan Creek is eliminated .... The Swan Creek improvement should

be made right now without any more talk." Others agreed. "You

talk about booming Toledo," noted one disgruntled citizen, "making

it bigger and better. We have three cities now. Eliminate Swan

Creek and we will have one. Begin in the center of the city and work

outward."⁸⁰

Mayor Whitlock responded to these complaints by appointing a

special commission, including E. O. Fallis, ex-state representative

Louis Paine, Councilman James Staunton, physician Peter Donnely

 

 

77. Toledo Blade, 15 December 1908, 17 December 1908.

78. Toledo Blade, 17 December 1908.

79. Toledo Blade, 20 August 1910, 19 March 1912. See also George Sherman,

"Pollution of Swan and Ten Mile Creeks" (Toledo, n.p., 1911), 12. "Swan Creek-

1908-1948" MSS collection located in Local History Room of Toledo Public Library.

80. Toledo Blade, 30 August 1910, 11 September 1910.

• 23
 

28                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

and city engineer George Tonson. They were assigned the task of

recommending solutions to the problems of Swan Creek and the

Miami and Erie Canal bed within the city limits. When the group

made little progress in the winter and spring of 1911, the Mayor

approached the City council, and in June received appropriations

permitting the commission to hire the services of George Sherman,

a civil engineer.⁸¹

Sherman quickly became convinced that the city confronted two

separate but related issues. One concerned the question of eliminat-

ing, or at least reducing, the growing pollution of Toledo's streams

and waterways. The other stemmed from the need to determine the

feasibility of altering Swan Creek's channel in order to tie the city

together. He concluded very quickly that whatever else the city

decided to do, it had to begin constructing an intercepting sewer

system as rapidly as possible. In March of 1912, before the commis-

sion as a whole was prepared to file its report, Sherman, on the basis

of a preliminary report, discussed what he saw as the city's three

alternatives and indicated his personal preference.⁸²

As he reviewed the matter, it was necessary that Toledo build an

intercepting sewer at a minimum cost of $200,000. For an expendi-

ture of $650,000, Sherman thought that the creek's neck could be

straightened, resulting in a freer flow of water. The course which he

favored, however, was to direct the stream into the Maumee at

Delaware Creek after constructing a large intercepting sewer. He

estimated that the entire cost of this was $2,250,000.83 The other

commission members filed their own separate report, and the rift

which had developed between Sherman and the others is obvious in

the following statement contained in the separate report: "The com-

mission derived but little benefit from the engineer appointed. In

fact the engineer acted entirely independent of the commission and

to some extent assumed its functions."⁸⁴

Apparently unaware of the serious implications these problems

held for his plans, Whitlock, in April 1912, appointed a second City

Hall and Civic Center Commission whose members included both

Maher and Jermain from the first City Hall Commission, in addi-

 

 

81. Toledo Blade, 27 September 1910, 29 June 1911.

82. Toledo Blade, 19 March 1912; see also Sherman's "Pollution of Swan Creek and

Ten Mile Creek," 11-12.

83. Ibid.

84. Toledo Tug Men's Association "Swan Creek" (Toledo, Published by the Tug

Men's Association, n.d., 1913), 12-13. Located in "Swan Creek-1908-1948" MSS

collection.

• 24
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                          29

 

tion to the retired industrialist Edward D. Libbey and two other

prominent Toledoans, H.W. Ashley and J.F. Egan. The extent of

Whitlock's optimism regarding the proposed city hall and civic cen-

ter can be seen in the directives he gave this second group. Since no

one believed any longer that the city could build a proper city hall

for $350,000, these men were asked to determine whether Toledo

should spend as much as 1.5 million or limit itself to $750,000 for

the proposed structure. Whitlock, moreover, now hoped that the

civic center would also include a new Soldier's Memorial Building,

and the new commission was asked to select an appropriate site.

Finally, despite the fact that the first commission had recommended

the small plan, rather than the large plan which entailed extending

the civic center's boundary to Cherry Street, this new body was

asked to reconsider that question.⁸⁵ In the spring of 1912 many

Toledoans, most notably the mayor, were confident that the prop-

osed civic center would soon materialize.

On October 7, the second commission, after consultations with the

architect Arnold Brunner, presented its findings to the mayor.

Essentially it favored an expenditure of $750,000 to one million

dollars for a building, 160 by 160 feet, designed to "harmonize

architectually with the court house." In addition this group selected

a civic center site similar to the one recommended by the first com-

mission, the area bounded by Erie, Jackson, Spielbusch and Beech

Streets. Now the commission suggested broadening the streets lead-

ing into the civic center and widening Beech Street, so that it could

form a direct link to the new Cherry Street Bridge.⁸6

On October 23, 1912, two weeks after the second City Hall and

Civic Center Commission issued its recommendations, the City

Council authorized a bond issue for $750,000.87 Early in 1913

Arnold Brunner again arrived in Toledo to begin working with the

architectural firm of Mills, Rhines, Bellman and Nordhoff.⁸⁸ For an

entire year, Brunner and this firm worked on plans for the proposed

city hall and civic center, but the final outcome was meager. In 1917

the American Institute of Architects revealed that despite an ex-

penditure of $30,000, "at no time was a printed report of the pro-

ceedings of the Committee submitted, nor any drawings of the pro-

 

 

 

 

85. Toledo Blade, 23 April 1912.

86. Toledo Blade, 8 October 1912.

87. Killets, Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, 513:I.

88. Toledo Blade, 5 February 1913.

• 25
 

30                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

posed civic center and the grouping of buildings therein made."⁸⁹

There were good reasons why this happened. Shortly after the

passage of the new bond issue late in 1912, the Swan Creek ques-

tion, which had been an issue for some time, erupted in full force.

Sherman's recommendations, while not those of the Swan Creek

Commission, received substantial support among south Toledoans.

By January of 1913 a group known as the Swan Creek Elimination

League was waging a strong campaign for their implementation.

Specifically the group dedicated itself to the "entire elimination of

Swan Creek and the canal within the city limits by diverting both

through Delaware Creek above Walbridge Park." The League's

pamphlets and newspaper advertisements argued: "We will get rid

of one of the worst nuisances any city could be cursed with. In a

short time the Swan Creek basin would be filled with streets and

houses that would increase the tax duplicate so as to entirely pay

out the principal of the debt incurred, the interest being paid out of

the expenses cut out. We will then," the League continued, "tear

down the Chinese wall between south and north side of the Swan

Creek basin and give free commercial and social intercourse be-

tween the two sides." Since the area in question was the location of

the Union Station, League pamphlets informed Toledoans: "We will

then clean house and permit visitors to Toledo to get and retain a

favorable impression of our otherwise beautiful city."⁹⁰

There is no evidence that the Swan Creek Elimination League

ever received funds from any of the railroads which owned property

in the area, known in Toledo as the Middle Grounds. The Clover

Leaf, for example, still maintained wharves along Swan Creek and

objected to the League's elimination plans. When it became known,

however, that Lake Shore officials had endorsed the League's plans,

members of the Civic Federation withdrew their original support.⁹¹

By February of 1913 a new group calling themselves the Conserva-

tionists had formed in opposition to the League and public meetings

were scheduled to allow both sides to debate one another. E.O. Fal-

lis, although a member of the mayor's Swan Creek Commission,

joined the Conservationists, who by now had attracted such well

known community leaders as Irving Macomber, the brother of the

late Francis Macomber, and the industrialist John Willys.⁹² It

 

 

89. American Institute of Architects, Committee on Town Planning, City Planning

Progress in the United States: 1917 (Washington, D.C., 1917), 178.

90. Toledo Blade, 5 February 1913.

91. Toledo Blade, 14 February 1913, 14 June 1913.

92. Toledo Blade, 21 February 1913.

• 26
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                         31

 

seems probable, although it cannot be stated with certainty, that

both Fallis and Macomber saw in the League's objectives a threat to

the mayor's proposed civic center.

The Conservationists attempted to counter the League's proposals

by arguing that Swan Creek, in its entirety, should be retained and

beautified. Fallis went so far as to draw up plans calling for the

building of a park between Cushing and Newton Streets, connected

to a proposed extension of Summit Street by a winding drive. On the

east bank of Swan Creek, Fallis hoped, the city would erect a play-

ground. "I can imagine the children playing there now, laughing

and romping on the green, splashing barefooted in the ponds, doing

a thousand joyful things that arise spontaneously, and," he added,

indicating the faith that progressives still placed in parks and play-

grounds, "I can see all of this weaving into the tapestry of a better

world."93

By May of that year, the Swan Creek Elimination League pre-

sented to the mayor a petition carrying 7,000 signatures, calling

upon the city to set an election date for a vote on the creek's elimina-

tion within the city limits. For the first time, the two issues of

building a civic center and eliminating the Swan Creek nuisance

were explicitly joined. The petition began by stating that the creek's

elimination took precedence over any other project currently under

consideration. It then added that while the League did not oppose

the building of Whitlock's civic center, it did question the advisabil-

ity of constructing a "truly colossal and expensive civic center," a

"luxury" which could only diminish the commercial productiveness

of city land and decrease the city's tax base. By contrast, the elim-

ination of Swan Creek would add to the city's store of usable land,

and in this way over the years would increase the municipal tax

rolls. Most important, however, the petition noted that the creek's

elimination would remove a long-standing health hazard.

The petition also argued with considerable justice that the pro-

posed project would provide beautification benefits similar to those

of boulevards and parks. Furthermore, important railroad com-

panies, such as the New York Central and Lake Shore, had indi-

cated that once Swan Creek and the canal bed were eliminated from

the city limits and Summit Street straightened, they were prepared

to work with the city on plans for the construction of a new and

"magnificent" union station. The petition accurately reminded Tole-

 

 

 

93. Toledo Blade, 14 February 1913.

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32                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

doans that such a union station would also represent a contribution

to the city beautiful.⁹⁴

There were serious difficulties, however, in the proposals con-

tained in the petition. It was not possible for the city, in and of itself,

to decide to eliminate the creek even if all the citizenry had sup-

ported the plan. The state of Ohio owned a tow path in the area

where Swan Creek joined the Miami and Erie Canal and state leg-

islation was necessary before Toledo could take any action on this

land or dispose in any way of the Miami and Erie Canal bed. Furth-

ermore, under Article IV of the Ordinance of 1787, all streams and

tributaries to the Great Lakes were to be kept open forever for

navigation. Swan Creek, despite its small size, fell into this cate-

gory, and thus before Toledo could eliminate any part of the creek, it

would be necessary to obtain the consent of the War Department

and secure the passage of appropriate congressional legislation.⁹⁵ In

addition, there existed the intricate problem of dealing with the

rights of abutting landowners, some of whom were utility companies

and railroads. Thus despite the hopes of petitioners, it was not possi-

ble to solve the issue of the creek's elimination simply by placing the

matter on the ballot. As Toledoans discovered, there were no easy

solutions to the Swan Creek and Miami and Erie Canal bed

problem.⁹⁶

In June 1913 Mayor Whitlock received the Swan Creek Commis-

sion's recommendations. In light of the State Board of Health's re-

cent findings indicating that the city faced a very serious pollution

problem, this body urged Toledo to build an intercepting sewer, not

only for Swan Creek but for Ten Mile Creek as well. It further

advised straightening these two streams, wherever possible, to

obtain a more rapid flow of water. In regard to Swan Creek, the

commission identified the area between Clayton and Cushing

streets as the most desirable place for such an undertaking. As for

the creek's elimination, however, the commission's report simply

stated: "The plan to eliminate Swan Creek entirely is not favored by

a majority of the Commission."⁹⁷

Whitlock's response to the report was equivocal. "Speaking unoffi-

cially, my personal opinion is that there are certain questions con-

 

 

94. Toledo Blade, 13 May 1913.

95. Toledo News-Bee, 4 June 1913. See also Toledo Blade, 5 February 1913, 27

February 1913, and 28 February 1913.

96. H. C. McClure, "Story of the Summit Street Extension," American City, 23

(July, 1920), 8-9.

97. Toledo Blade, 2 June 1913.

• 28
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                           33

 

nected with Swan Creek which mitigate against the growth of such

a city as we all hope Toledo will become." Regarding the course of

action, however, he would give no opinion. "It isn't within my prov-

ince to say whether the creek should be eliminated, but I feel that

the conditions should be eliminated. How that is to be done is a

technical question for the engineers to determine."⁹⁸

Over time Toledo would implement the Swan Creek Commission's

recommendation and build the intercepting sewers. And eventually

by 1925 the neck of Swan Creek would be eliminated, permitting

the straightening of Summit Street to Knapp, thereby connecting it

directly with Broadway for the first time. This was possible, howev-

er, only after the passage of relatively intricate city, state and feder-

al legislation based on forty separate agreements worked out be-

tween the Ohio State Board of Public Works on the one hand and

railroad and utility companies and private property owners on the

other. Eventually, too, the old Miami and Erie Canal bed would be

filled in and turned into a four-lane highway-the Anthony Wayne

Trail-but the actual undertaking of this project did not begin until

the late 1920s.⁹⁹ During the 1930s, in the New Deal era, progress

accelerated when the Works Progress Administration poured addi-

tional funding into the highway's construction.100

In the summer of 1913, however, as Brand Whitlock was ending

his final term as Mayor of Toledo, all this remained in the future.

All that Whitlock could know at this point was that unhappy south

Toledoans, through their various organizations, had compromised

his hopes that Toledo would soon have a city hall, the beginning of

the proposed civic center. Toledoans, in general, remained divided

on what action should be taken regarding the southside problem,

but one thing was certain. With a municipal debt of $7,750,000,

Toledo could not undertake both the southside improvement and the

building of an impressive civic center in the immediate future.¹⁰¹

Undoubtedly Whitlock was disappointed as the time drew close

for him to leave office. Perhaps the Blade described his situation

most accurately:

 

It was Mr. Whitlock's hope at the very beginning of his mayoralty that he

could be concerned in the creation of a comprehensive city plan, at once an

 

 

 

98. Toledo Blade, 3 June 1913.

99. Toledo Blade, 25 July 1925, 28 July 1925, 29 July 1925, 21 November 1927.

100. Toledo Magazine, The Blade, 21 October 1979, 8.

101. Toledo Times, 21 February 1913.

• 29
 

34                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

increase in the comfort and convenience of those to whom the city was a

working place and a beautification which could add to the city's reknown.

This hope, as we know, could not be realized. Toledo has not been rich. It has

had countless other things to do, more insistent, more necessary.

The newspaper did note that the mayor could draw comfort

from the fact that "something of a start had been made in the

direction of a city plan."¹⁰² In this the editorial was correct. At

the time that he appointed the second City Hall and Civic

Center Commission, Whitlock had placed its work in the

broader context of planning. He saw accurately that the civic

center issue bore a relationship to the problems of the city as a

whole, and he expressed hope that beautification of the city's

core would, in turn, represent the beginning of a comprehen-

sive plan for the entire city. Whitlock did not know at this

time that the city's more extensive sectional problems would

forestall action on the civic center itself. Addressing the mem-

bers of the commission, Whitlock had made the following com-

ments:

 

Toledo, like most American cities, has developed without a plan, accord-

ing to the exigencies of its situation and the various impulses that have

marked its growth. As a result one cannot come into the city, or go out of it,

without being subjected to danger at grade crossings, and, furthermore,

sections are separated by natural conditions, which our ingenuity must

overcome, if the city is to be a homogenous thing.

 

Eventually he hoped that the city would draw up "a plan prepared

by those professionally qualified as engineers and landscape

architects, so that, even though we build now nothing more than the

city hall and provide for the soldiers' memorial building, lines would

be indicated along which the growth of the city and its upbuilding

might be directed." Whitlock concluded by adding that since City

Council had already selected the site for the city hall, it was his hope

that construction work would begin as soon as possible.¹⁰³

After Whitlock left office little progress was made towards the

building of a city hall. Late in 1914 a third commission was formed,

but this group accomplished nothing. At that time the City Council

passed legislation extending the civic center area from Beech to

Cherry Street, but four months later it repealed that legislation,

 

 

 

102. Toledo Blade, 31 December 1913.

103. Toledo News-Bee, 26 April 1912.

• 30
 

Whitlock and the City Beautiful                           35

 

confining the limits of the proposed center to Beech Street.¹⁰⁴ There

the matter rested for the next few years. By 1916 Toledo was ex-

periencing serious financial problems, and only the passage of a

last-minute bond issue in November of that year permitted the city

to meet its payroll and avoid defaulting on $650,000 worth of bonds

owed the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland.^l05 It was not until

1919 that Toledoans would again seriously consider completing the

city hall and civic center. In 1922 a bond issue of $3,000,000 to build

a city hall and a new memorial hall failed by a margin of 500

votes. ¹⁰⁶

There was an irony in the events that had led to the defeat of

Whitlock's plans. He had hoped that Toledo, by building a civic

center, would demonstrate that it had moved beyond the "village"

stage and into the era of "urban sequences." Instead, the continuing

problems associated with the physical and geographical divisions of

the city had been the very forces that had destroyed his plans.

Nonetheless, an examination of Whitlock's ill-fated sponsorship of

the city beautiful movement in Toledo demonstrates that, in this

instance at least, what inspired him was far different from that

generally associated with the movement in many cities. Undoubted-

ly, he appealed at times to the self-interests of commercial and

business groups, bent on promoting Toledo's fortunes as the city

competed with other municipalities. This was not, however, his

primary motive. Rather, as he had stated so many times, he had

viewed a city hall and civic center as the physical manifestation or

concrete embodiment of an urban sense of community, the "city

sense." Not only that, but the presence of such buildings would serve

to nurture this important "city sense," thereby strengthening its

development further. Finally, of course, like other contemporaries,

such as the architect Arnold Brunner, Whitlock saw such buildings

as art for the masses, or as he phrased it, "democracy in artistic

forms."

It is possible that the motives inspiring Whitlock operated in

other cities as well. After all, he was not an original thinker, as his

indebtedness to Frederick Howe and others indicated. An examina-

tion of the city beautiful movement elsewhere in places such as

 

 

104. Toledo Blade, 13 April 1916 and 27 March 1920; See also Toledo City Journal,

8 July 1922, 287-90.

105. Toledo Blade, 20 July 1916, 9 August 1916, 10 August 1916, and 8 November

1916.

106. Killets, Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio, 513:I; Toledo Blade, 26 September

1922.

• 31
 

36                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

Cleveland, for example, might reveal similar patterns and motiva-

tions. If it does, it will indicate that the city beautiful movement was

far more complex than has been recognized and that the admixture

of commercial boosterism and idealism was greater than has gener-

ally been acknowledged by historians.

Whether or not this is the case, however, for Brand Whitlock the

attempt to make Toledo a city beautiful reflected his aspiration to

create a cohesive community, "a whole beautiful city in which men

would be equals and brothers, a city of loving friends," as he phrased

it. It was also inextricably interwoven with his desire to bring the

city in which he lived and served as mayor closer to his view of the

new Jerusalem, the Heavenly City brought down to earth. To Brand

Whitlock the American dream would be realized only in an urban

setting, because it was only in the city that men would overcome the

"hard selfishness of unrestrained individualism."

Whitlock had warned Toledoans in 1906 that if they failed to act

at that time "the opportunity will have forever passed .. ." Unfortu-

nately he was correct; despite later attempts to build a city hall,

Toledo, Ohio, today remains an anomaly among American cities. It

has no city hall, and its municipal functions are conducted at a

number of locations throughout the city.

• 32