New book chronicles history of Mill Creek Park

By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- A collection of Mill Creek Park history will help finance its future.
Carol Potter, park development and marketing director, and Rick Shale, a park commissioner, collaborated to pen "Historic Mill Creek Park," which is available for $19.99 at area and online bookstores and through Arcadia Publishing at www.arcadiapublishing.com.
It includes about 200 photographs, culled from archives of the park, The Vindicator and the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, depicting the park's early years.
Potter said the pair started researching park history in preparation for the park's March listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
"I've always had an interest in local history in general and in Mill Creek Park history, and that evolved into satisfying our own curiosity," Shale said. The book chronicles the park district from its founding in 1891 to 1989 when it became a metro parks district.
The authors say they want to compile a second volume, depicting the park from 1989 to present.
At Lanterman's Mill
They will sign copies from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and Sunday during Olde Fashioned Christmas at the Mill at Lanterman's Mill, off Glenwood Avenue near Canfield Road.
All proceeds from the book will go to the Mill Creek Foundation Land Conservancy Fund.
Volney Rogers, a Youngstown attorney, founded Mill Creek in 1891, making it Ohio's first park district. Rogers wrote the legislation allowing creation of a park district and persuaded state lawmakers to pass it.
The park originally covered 400 acres. Today it comprises about 2,600 acres as a result of additional land acquisitions.
Potter was an admirer of Rogers before starting research for the book, but that work solidified her respect for the park founder.
"He was such a visionary," Potter said.
Designed park
Mill Creek Park was designed, rather than preserved. The three lakes, Cohasset, Glacier and Newport, were manmade, after designers plotted their locations.
"Back then, there was no such thing as a green attitude," Potter said. "People pretty much thought that he was a nut."
He had to overcome widespread apathy among area residents, she said.
"We like to say that he [Rogers] took God's work and improved it," Potter said. "He made it accessible to people."
In the 1890s, landscape architecture was a brand new art.
Landscape architects
"Volney Rogers hired the best landscape architects in the country," Shale said, listing Charles Eliot, H.W.S. Cleveland and Warren H. Manning.
Those experts guided him in his vision, but the design was all Rogers', he said.
"He was a half-century ahead of his time," Shale said.
Establishment of the park allowed nature to reclaim the sections of the park that had been denuded, used for dumping or other industry.
Rogers "saw the park as an alternative, with cleaner water, cleaner air," Shale said.
Down memory lane
The authors hope their book brings back memories for its readers.
"One of the groups of people we're targeting is those who once lived here and have moved away," Shale said. "The pictures, hopefully, stir up Mill Creek memories.
They also hope some reader can offer them some help.
One photograph from the historical society that's featured in the book shows five young girls clutching flower bouquets in what the caption calls "Daisy Field."
No park maps show Daisy Field, and Shale and Potter weren't able to determine its location during their research. They hope some reader will remember a parent or grandparent talking about it and can help them solve the mystery.
The work details the park's formation to how it became an attraction for people throughout the community.
"Volney Rogers recognized that everyone, from the affluent to working classes, needs to have a backdrop for family events," Potter said.