‘Parks & People’ book commemorates St. Paul parks
West Side restaurateur unites chefs to support local nonprofits
By Jake Spitzack | Staff Writer | May 2025
Nineteen of St. Paul’s city parks have been memorialized in a new coloring book, set to be published by the Ramsey County Historical Society and the St. Paul Parks Conservancy on May 9. It’s not just for kids. It has detailed sections that can take even the most artistic people hours to fill in. It also highlights the history and environmental “treasures” within the parks, so people can have a deeper appreciation for them the next time they visit.
“Parks & People: A Colorful History of Saint Paul Parks,” features illustrations by Jeanne Kosfeld and informative narratives written by Kathy Berdan. Two launch events are slated for May, and each provides the opportunity to meet the contributors. Book & Brew is held 2-5 p.m., Saturday, May 10, at Waldmann Brewery, 445 Smith Ave. N. Visitors can enjoy live music and get a free beer with each book purchased, as well as join a walking tour to Irvine Park at 2:30 or 3:30 p.m. Parks Giving Day will be held noon-1 p.m., Friday, May 16, at Irvine Park. The event will feature music and food trucks, and also celebrate the 176th birthday of St. Paul’s park system. The book is $20 and proceeds support the Historical Society and the Conservancy.
The Conservancy is also hosting The Great Park Walk 2025: Around the Parks in 80 Days, in partnership with Great River Passage Conservancy. The summerlong event challenges people to visit every park in the coloring book. Prizes are awarded for visiting the parks, or by getting friends to sponsor your “walk.” A Finish Line Celebration is slated for August 4, at either Raspberry Island or Harriet Island.
The drawing of Pedro Park is the only one that doesn’t match the site as it appears today, because the park is still being built. The illustration had to be done from a conceptual rendering. Pedro Park is expected to be completed in late summer, fit with a large shelter, pet area, playground, lawn space and more. It has been called for since 2006 when the city adopted the Fitzgerald Park Precinct Plan.
Kosfeld is a former newspaper cartoonist and director of the design department at the University of Alaska, and for the past 18 years has been creative director at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. She paints and does a variety of other jobs in her spare time, including board game design and creating public sculptures. She also did illustrations for two other coloring books: “Irvine Park Saint Paul: Neighborhood Architecture” and “Finding RONDO: Saint Paul.” Berdan is a Minnesota native and retired journalist who worked throughout the Midwest including in St. Paul. Since leaving the newsroom she has done freelance writing for various organizations, including Minnesota Monthly and the Walker Art Center.
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Overall, St. Paul’s parks system is the result of countless people who dedicated their lives to ensuring residents can enjoy green space for decades to come, and it’s continually evolving. Two years ago St. Paul residents voted to increase the city’s sales tax by one percent to raise $738 million for street improvements and $246 million for parks and recreation facility improvements for the next 20 years. Aside from costly repairs to many existing parks facilities, the park funds will support the creation of a multipurpose community center on the city’s East Side, river-focused environmental learning space and National Park Service headquarters at Crosby Farm Regional Park, and a 1.5-mile River Balcony promenade along the downtown bluff.
The St. Paul Parks Conservancy was founded in 2008 to help generate support from private individuals, corporations and foundations for park enhancements, programs and facilities. The McKnight Foundation donated seed money to the City of St. Paul to get it off the ground, and the nonprofit has since raised $4 million for park projects and programming. Today, Mears Park, Rice Park and Pedro Park have specific philanthropic arms under the Conservancy’s umbrella to help garner funding and maintain the sites.
Parks featured in the book include: Rice Park, Mears Park, Como Regional Park, Summit Overlook Park, Harriet Island Regional Park, Phalen Regional Park, Newell Park, Cochran Park, Boyd Park, Swede Hollow Park, Lilydale Regional Park, Raspberry Island Regional Park, Upper Landing Park, Speak Takraw Courts, Frogtown Community Center and General Vang Pao Fields, Unčí Makhá Park, Pedro Park, Indian Mounds Regional Park and Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary. To order the book, visit ramsey-county-historical-society.square.site.
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