Establishing the parks: the Olmsted role Leakin Park traces its earliest history to a small tract near Edmondson and Hilton avenues, designated in 1901 as the Gwynns Falls Reserve. In 1904, as the city anticipated expanding its borders through annexation, the highly regarded
Olmsted Brothers firm proposed creating "stream valley parks" to protect distinctive watersheds like the Gwynns Falls from future development and secure them as natural preserves. Over the next decades, the Olmsteds worked with the city in its acquisition of park land extending to Windsor Mill Road. In 1926, following the 1918 annexation, the city again commissioned the Olmsteds for a study of park needs. This report recommended extending Gwynns Falls Park northward along the stream to the city boundary. It also urged acquiring the valley of a tributary, the Dead Run. In 1939, a request to rename the park in the name of a former city mayor was made. The Winans Estate was purchased for the park in the 1940s, and it was officially renamed Leakin Park in the decade as well.
Expressway threat seen from above in the direction of
I-695|272x272px Leakin Park was threatened in 1971 when funding for the federal
Interstate Highway System introduced plans to create a highway through the park. As plans for the road developed, community activists organized in opposition. A group committed to protecting the parks took the name of Volunteers Opposed to Leakin Park Expressway (VOLPE). Taking their opposition to court, VOLPE won a partial victory in 1972 when it was ruled that provision for hearings on the park route had been "legally insufficient," and ordered any future plans to take in full consideration of the environmental impact they might pose. By 1980, city officials had decided to abandon the proposed route through the park.
Pipeline controversy In 2013, a
Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) plan to run a new natural gas pipeline for a distance through the park was made public. This line threatened a substantial number of the park's trees. BGE spokespersons explained the new line would replace an original one installed with park department permission in 1949, which was now facing considerable maintenance problems. However, a new line could not follow the existing route due to current environmental regulations protecting wetlands, so the proposed new route would run along the ridge near the southern border of the park. In an editorial on the controversy,
The Baltimore Sun insisted that "BGE must work with the city and other stakeholders to find the least damaging route for a new gas line through the area." In response to the concerns raised, BGE agreed to consider an alternative northerly route through the park, following existing park roads, minimizing tree loss, and impacting fewer residences by its proximity to them. After four years of dialogue and studies of route feasibility, BGE began construction along the alternative route in 2018, completing the work in the autumn of 2019. Following completion, 870 replacement trees were planted along edges of the corridor.
Body disposals More than 75 deceased individuals were identified, scattered throughout the park, between 1946 and 2017. Most incidents were recorded as murders in the
Baltimore Sun and
Baltimore City Paper. Easy access to the park made it a convenient disposal site for murders "that happened, often, not in the park but near it." Leakin Park has garnered a negative reputation as a place where the remains of local suicide and murder victims are often found. Because of this association, the park began to be morbidly called by locals "the city's largest unregistered graveyard" and "Baltimore's largest open-air cemetery". In 2011, the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks led efforts to change the park's reputation with the closure of dead-end access roads. == References ==