Crapo Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Crapo Park (85 acres, 34 hectares) is a city park with arboretum and botanical garden, located alongside the Mississippi River at Parkway Drive, Burlington, Iowa. Those who are not familiar with the park often mispronounce it as "Crap-O" Park while the correct pronunciation is Cray-po Park. It is reputed to be the site where the American flag was first raised on Iowa's soil, by Zebulon Pike in 1805.
The park includes an arboretum with over 200 varieties of trees and shrubs, as well as botanical gardens of annuals and perennials. As of 2003, the following park trees were on Iowa's statewide "Big Tree" list: cypress Arizonia (Cupressus arizonica), black hickory (Carya glabra), pawpaw (Asimina triloba), and black walnut (Juglans nigra).
The park was established in 1895 by Philip Crapo, a local businessman and philanthropist, in time for the Iowa semi-centennial (1896), with landscape engineering by Earnshaw and Punshon of Cincinnati, Ohio. The park includes walking paths and four shelters, as well as Lake Starker (constructed 1905, 1.5 acres, 0.6 hectares), the Hawkeye Natives Log Cabin (replica constructed 1910), Zebulon Pike Memorial, and Foehlinger Fountain. It also includes the Black Hawk Spring and Cave, commemorating Chief Black Hawk. One can crawl for more than a hundred feet through a rock tube before the passage gets too small. A cold spring runs through the cave as well. The park is popular with frisbee-golf enthusiasts.
