Cochran Park, Saint Paul, Minnesota
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Cochran Park | |
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| Neighborhood/s: | Summit Hill, Saint Paul, Minnesota |
| City/locality- State/province | Saint Paul, Minnesota |
| County- State/province: | Ramsey County, Minnesota |
| State/province: | Minnesota |
| Country: | United States |
| Year Established: | 1923 |
| Founded by: | Emilie B. Cochran |
| Historic Function: | Park |
| Current Function: | Park |
(44.94298° N, 93.115025° WLatitude: 44°56′34.728″N
Longitude: 93°6′54.09″W)
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Chronology
An unoffical playground for children since the late nineteenth century, this triangle of land was presented to the City in 1923 by Emilie B. Cochran in memory of her husband, Thomas Cochran, who lived in St. Paul from 1867 until his death in 1906. Thomas and Emilie Cochran lived in houses at 229 Summit (now the parking lot for the Cathedral) and on Western Avenue near this park.
In 1926, Thomas Cochran's son commissioned Paul Manship to create a sculpture to stand in Cochran Park to honor his father. Manship created -Indian Hunter and His Dog- to stand in a pool surrounded by four bronze geese. In the 1960s this sculpture was vandalized. The neighborhood was feeling the effects of urban flight, and had begun to decline. The city of St. Paul decided to move the sculpture to a safer spot near the Como Park Conservatory. A fiberglass copy of the sculpture was made for Cochran Park.
A few years ago, with the decline now reversed and the neighborhood once again a popular place to live, neighbors petitioned the city to move the original bronze sculpture back in the park, so the two sculptures were switched. Today the fiberglass copy stands in Como Park. The original bronze sculpture once again stands in Cochran Park.
Memory
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, we young people in the neighborhood (mostly Cathedral School students) would gather here on Friday nights. At that time, being urban kids who knew nothing of wildlife or waterfowl, we always said to each other, "Meet you at the duck pond". I don't know when we discovered they were geese.
We would go to the Beaux Arts Theater, and then maybe to Laska Drugstore for a Malt -- or a Phosphate -- which was very popular. "Those were the days".
July 17, 2009
I received a call from a friend I grew up with in this neighborhood. We were reminiscing, and she said, "Remember when we'd all meet at the Duck Pond." I answered, "I certainly do." No need to change our memories now.
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