F. T. Proctor Park: Short History
Olmsted’s original 1913 design for the Lily Pond, one of the most iconic features of Utica’s Olmsted system. the backdrop of flowering shrubs Olmsted designed for it was recently recreated.
Although he had done much work with Olmsted between 1906 and 1910, Proctor initially did not employ him for this project. Instead, he commissioned the Buffalo firm of Townsend and Fleming to draft plans for this park in 1911; Proctor again chose well, as this firm was headed by Bryant Fleming, a founding member of Cornell’s landscape architecture program (the fourth oldest program of its sort in the US), whose firm designed a number of early New York State parks, notably Watkins Glen and Letchworth parks.
However, Proctor became dissatisfied with Townsend and Fleming and called Olmsted in to take over the project in the fall of 1912. As happened in their previous collaborations, Thomas R. Proctor worked very closely with Olmsted on the most minute of details of this park, and it was perhaps their closest collaboration. Proctor’s wife, Maria Watson Williams Proctor, also played an active role with her husband and Olmsted in hammering out the design of the park.
The park’s ceremonial gate, consisting of four imposing granite columns at the corner of Culver Avenue and Rutger Street, was designed by the park’s namesake, Thomas R. Proctor’s half-brother, Frederick. Olmsted was not fond of the design—he thought that the round granite finials atop each column were too large. This was one of the occasions on which Proctor disregarded Olmsted’s advice.
Olmsted created a beautiful design that included two ponds, each located in the park’s lower level. Unfortunately, both ponds were eliminated by the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s as part of a flood control effort. In 1913, Olmsted also designed the park’s iconic Lily Pond—a rectangular cement pool adjacent to the park’s main “upper loop”—which still exists and is popular with visitors.
The park was opened to the public in 1914, but the Proctor family retained personal ownership and management of the property until 1923, at which point Maria Proctor donated it to the City of Utica for the perpetual benefit of the people of Utica. This donation completed the process of creating the park and parkway system the Proctors had envisioned in the late 1890s and which they had begun working with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., in 1906 to create.
A view from the North Side of the park, on the other side of the creek, showing one of the three white wooden bridges that were part of F.T. Proctor Park’s original Olmsted design
One of the two ponds that used to be located in the lower level of F.T. Proctor Park.
The waterfall and dam that contained the second of two ponds that used to be in the lower of F.T. Proctor Park
The second pond that used to be built into the creek in the lower level of F.T. Proctor Park, as it would have been seen from the west, as one walk downhill from the Lily Pond.
One of the iconic bathhouses in F.T. Proctor Park. Two of these were built in each of the three parks in Utica’s Olmsted Parks by the WPA during the 1930s and were designed by the Utica City Engineer’s Office.
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.’s blueprint for the north side of the Starch Factory Creek in F.T. Proctor Park (1913). After years of neglect and decay, this section is being restored by the City of Utica and Olmsted City.