100 Years of Harmon Park: 1925-2025

Thanks to Dakota County and Minnesota Locks for their support.

Created in 1925 with a grant from an East Coast philanthropist, Harmon Park is the oldest park in West St. Paul.

Birthday Bash

West St. Paul is celebrating Harmon Park’s 100th birthday with a free community party at the park:

• When: Wednesday, August 20 from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
• What: The event will include music, games, a wiffle ball tournament, a look at the Smith-Dodd park plans, as well as birthday cake and hot dogs.

Creation of Harmon Park

William E. Harmon, an East Coast real estate developer and philanthropist, founded the Harmon Foundation in 1921 to support a variety of causes.

• Funding: In 1924, the Harmon Foundation gave $100,000 to establish 50 playgrounds in cities across the U.S., including West St. Paul.
• Locations: Minnesota’s other Harmon Parks were located in Pipestone, Worthington, and next door in South St. Paul. Other cities with Harmon Parks range as wide as Ft. Lauderdale, San Antonio, Tacoma, and Punxsutawney, Penn.
• Timing: The seventh city selected for a park, West St. Paul’s Harmon Park opened on August 23, 1925.
• Purchase: Along with Harmon’s $2,000 grant, the city and school board partnered to pitch in an additional $250 to buy a total of 2.75 acres for the park next to Sibley Elementary School.
• Application: Residents can thank the West St. Paul Women’s Club and the newly formed Parent-Teacher Association, as well as Emil Langula and Jack Mirwald, for applying for the grant.

Harmon’s Sillier Side

While the respected Harmon Foundation distributed money using standard methods, Harmon also gave away money as his alter-ego Jedediah Tingle in ways the more serious Harmon Foundation wouldn’t ‘touch with a 10-foot pole.’

• Harmon used his great-grandfather’s name as a pseudonym.
• As Tingle, he gave prizes to children competing in silly contests, as well as overlooked laborers, artists, and poets.
• The ruse stayed hidden until Harmon’s death in 1928 when the reading of his will revealed he had been Jedediah Tingle all along.

“It was his particular desire not to contribute to the usual charity, but rather to use the facilities in his command to stir others to the possibilities within themselves.”

West St. Paul Booster article about Harmon’s death in 1928

Timeline:

• 1925 – On August 23, 1925, the city dedicates and opens the city’s first playground. 
• 1927 – West St. Paul receives an additional $300 from the Harmon Foundation for the development of the playground.
• 1931 – City Council acquires land from Thomas Fitzgerald and expands Harmon Park by one acre.
• 1940 – The Works Progress Administration (WPA) awards West St. Paul $11,016 for the improvement of Harmon Park. The city pitches in another $2,500. Work includes a flagpole pedestal with historic plaques, fields for baseball, hockey, tennis, and more, as well as a limestone wall. To this day, a portion of the wall remains along Charlton Street.
• 1954 – The United Sportsmen’s Club donates a $700 water fountain and a hockey rink is added.
• 1955 – Dugouts and batting cages are added to the baseball field.
• 1972 – The park expands with the purchase of three homes along Bernard and the site of Sibley Elementary School. Hockey rinks, warming house, parking, play courts, walkways, and playground are added.
• 1987 – A new playground is added, which kicks off a nearly two-decade dry spell for Harmon Park improvements.
• 2000-2004: City develops city-wide parks system plan, which calls for improvements to Harmon Park. City subsequently creates Harmon Park-specific redevelopment plan. City negotiates purchase of Wolters property for future park expansion. 
• 2009 – City takes full possession of Wolters family’s five-acres, demolishes homes and rents greenhouse to Gerten’s, a local artist, and an antique dealer while park plans are finalized.
• 2012-2013: Harmon Park plans updated and finalized, including the idea to focus youth athletics at Harmon Park and adult athletics at the Sports Complex.
• 2015 – A grand opening in September celebrates a $6.2 million redesign of Harmon Park, including a splash pad, new ball field layout, community building, warming house, playground, and more.

Redevelopment: 2014-2015

Here’s a look at redevelopment work beginning in 2014:

Town Square Television covers the construction work:

“It is the hope of the Foundation that these fields will influence the establishment of others—not transient fields, soon crowded out and forgotten, but everlasting ones where traditions of community recreation may be established.”

Harmon Foundation President W. Burke Harmon in 1928

Opening Celebration: 2015

In September 2015, the city celebrated the redeveloped park with a community cookout:

Town Square Television covers the grand opening celebration:

Harmon Park Fun Facts:

• Roots: Starting in the 1890s, the Wolters family ran a brickyard and later garden business on land that would become part of Harmon Park more than 100 years later.
• School: For four decades, Sibley Elementary School shared the Harmon Park playground until the school was demolished in 1964 and became part of the park in 1972. 
• Neighbors: Schools have always been next to Harmon Park. First Sibley Elementary, then Sibley Junior High—which expanded to Sibley High School and Grass Junior High—and later Heritage E-STEM Middle School. The eastern portion of the park is owned by ISD 197. The city and school district have an agreement to share facilities.
• Twins connection: Prior to the 2015 expansion, the city rented out the former Wolter greenhouses to local artist Craig David. Among other projects, David created a three-paneled porcelain mosaic mural for Target Field in the space.
• Budget savvy: For the 2015 expansion, Amish farmers from Harmony, Minnesota, disassembled and removed the Wolters greenhouse structures, saving the city nearly $30,000 in demolition and disposal costs.
• Historic markers: The landscaped entrance at the corner of Charlton and Bernard includes several historic plaques and a WPA marker from 1940. There’s also a marker near the ballfields honoring the Wolters family. John Pelano Field is also named for John Pelano, the longtime commissioner for West St. Paul Youth Baseball.
• Forever: The original grant from the Harmon Foundation stipulated that the land be used as a playground in perpetuity.

Sept. 18, 2025 Update

Town Square TV shared their report from the 100th birthday party:

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(Photos courtesy of the Dakota County Historical Society, Town Square Television, City of West St. Paul, and West St. Paul Reader.)