- Robbinsdale’s Graeser Park was built in 1940-41 along the new Highway 100 where it crossed the Jefferson Highway (a popular tourist route established in the 1920s that ran right through Robbinsdale on its way from New Orleans to Winnipeg). Soon Highway 100 became a tourist attraction in itself.
- The first phase of Highway 100 ran along the west side of Minneapolis and was called the “Belt Line” because it was originally planned to circle the Twin Cities. The western portion allowed drivers to avoid the crowded streets and dangerous intersections in the city, giving travelers a safer way to travel south, west, or “up north.”
- The section from Edina to Robbinsdale was praised for its ground-breaking engineering, safety features, and scenic beauty. It was called “Lilac Way” for the thousands of lilacs planted on both sides while it was being built. Today portions of the service roads are still called Lilac Way or Lilac Drive. Even after highway expansion in the 1990s, some of the original lilacs remain.
- The park was named for highway engineer Carl F. Graeser, the “father of the belt line,” and designed in the rustic style by noted landscape architect Arthur R. Nichols.
- Of the seven original Lilac Way parks, Robbinsdale’s was the last to be built, the largest, and the most elaborate, and it is the most intact today. Portions of two still exist partially, and four parks have been completely lost to highway expansion; .
- Carl Graeser designed a variety of fireplaces for the parks. Robbinsdale’s iconic “beehive” is one of only two fireplaces ever built in this design, and the only one in the US still standing in its original location. (The City of St. Louis Park rescued its beehive and carefully moved it to a new location along Highway 100 in 2008.)
- In 2023, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) completed a three-year historic preservation project to repair/stabilize/rebuild many of Graeser Park’s stone features.
- The preservation work was done according to national historic preservation standards, and included…
…reinstalling eleven picnic tables in their original locations using salvaged stone
…repairing the beehive, replacing all of its missing or broken stones, returning it to look like new, and covering the fireboxes for long-term preservation
…stabilizing loose stones around the pools in the rock garden (restoring water to the park was not in MnDOT’s scope)
…building accessible sidewalks into the park from the end of the West Broadway bridge to the parking lot, and from West Broadway directly to a new accessible table.
Thanks to MnDOT’s Historic Roadside Property Program, and the historic masonry experts contracted for the work, this one-of-a-kind place will have a “second life” that people can enjoy and appreciate for many years to come.