George Kessler

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George E. Kessler
Born	1862 Frankenhausen, Germany
Died	1923 Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

This article is about the city planner. For the Metal Gear character, see List of classic Metal Gear characters

George E. Kessler (1862 – 1923) was a German American pioneer city planner and landscape architect.

George Kessler was born in Frankenhausen, Germany in 1862. In 1865, his widowed mother, who taught French and art to support the two, took her son to Dallas, Texas in the United States. Later, George worked as a cashboy at Sanger Harris Dry Goods ^[1].

Kessler moved to Europe and studied civic design in Germany, France, and Russia. In 1882 he moved to Kansas City and designed a railroad-owned amusement park. In 1893 he drew up the plans for the city's park-boulevard system ^[1]. In 1904, he designed and landscaped the grounds at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.

The same year he also designed Fair Park in Dallas, but his biggest gift to that city was his "Kessler Plan", which he created in 1909. That year the Dallas Chamber of Commerce established the City Plan and Improvement League and hired Kessler to design a long-range plan of civic improvements for Dallas. His plans included fixing the uncontrollable flooding of the Trinity River, fixing narrow, crooked downtown streets, and fixing dangerous railroad crossings. At that time his plans were not implemented and were deemed "impractical," but later it became very clear that changes were needed.

In 1918 Kessler returned to act as consulting engineer for the Dallas Property Owner's Association and in 1919 began working for the Metropolitan Development Association of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce. On 3 January 1922, he returned to St. Louis. His plans for the Trinity River were finally implemented in the 1930s.

Kessler also drafted city plans for Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Cleveland, El Paso, Denver, and Syracuse. He also designed Camp Wilson, an army cantonment near San Antonio ^[1].

He died in Indianapolis, survived by his wife and son. In Indianapolis, a major street, Kessler Boulevard, is named for him. There is another Kessler Boulevard in Longview, Washington, also named for him.

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