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Edward V. Babcock
Edward Vose Babcock (January 31, 1864 – September 2, 1948) was a lumber industrialist who served as Mayor of Pittsburgh from 1918 to 1922. BiographyEarly lifeEdward Vose Babcock entered the lumber business from an early age. He ran successfully for City Council in 1911 and began making a political name for himself. Pittsburgh politics Unlike his predecessor "Joe the builder", Babcock's administration had little time to implement much policy, they were too busy dealing with the triple threat of a massive steel strike that created much social dissension and unrest, the 1918-1919 flu pandemic that hit Pittsburgh especially hard, all this while at the family dinner tables and company lunch rooms around the city the women's suffrage movement tested the strength of families and employers. Creation of North and South ParksIn 1925, Babcock was elected Allegheny County Commissioner. Concerned about the rapid transformation of large areas of rural land into suburbs, Babcock wanted to set aside protected areas of land for recreation. To achieve this, he personally purchased two huge tracts of land, totaling around 4,000 acres. He sold the land to the county at cost to create North and South Parks. Although some were skeptical at first, the public quickly came to love the "people's country clubs," and the County soon acquired another 500 acres. North and South Parks provided the foundation for the county-wide system, which expanded to a total of nine parks and over 12,000 acres from 1958 to 1979. Babcock hired Paul B. Riis, a nationally prominent landscape architect, as the first director of the new Allegheny County Bureau of Parks in 1927. Riis laid the groundwork for North and South Parks, including major landscaping and road systems. He was inspired by the "Prairie Style" of landscape architect Jens Jensen, which used native plants and materials to construct naturalistic landscapes. The hallmark of Riis's design included familiar features of the Western Pennsylvania landscape. He used layered stones, a rich palette of native plants, and winding waterways to define the park's character and create spaces "suitable for human play." Riis worked for six years to develop the North Park Lake and Boathouse as the park's signature features as well as park roads, trails, picnic groves, sports fields, pool, and golf course. In 1932, new County Commissioners hired architect Henry Hornbostel, who had designed many of Pittsburgh's greatest buildings, as Bureau of Parks director. Thanks to his leadership, North Park was completed during the Great Depression using New Deal programs. In 1933, he established a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the park housing 200 men to carry out his plan.[2] Later lifeIn response to the suffrage movement, Babcock became the first mayor to appoint a woman to a cabinet-level position within the city. After leaving the mayor's office Babcock continued his political career at the county level, becoming a commissioner in 1927. During his rule of Allegheny County he was successful in pushing through the opening of the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin, he also was instrumental in providing county help to the city for the opening of the triplet bridges (6th, 7th and 9th Street Bridges). He was also extremely generous, purchasing at personal expense 4,000 acres (16 km2) of land for the expansive "North Park" and "South Park" in the county. He retired in 1931 and died in 1948, being buried in Homewood Cemetery. Legacy
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