Lilacs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the New Deal, the WPA and the Great Depression in America.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Highway 100 was planned and built to be a ‘belt line’ highway around the Twin Cities. Between 1934 and 1941, the section between Highway 5 in Edina and Highway 52 (now Highway 81) in Robbinsdale was completed.

It is hard to imagine today how revolutionary the landscaping was at the time. Designed to give the highway a parkway-like experience, families pulled their cars off the Highway into one of the 7 ‘roadside parks’ for picnics. It was an opportunity to grill burgers in the stone ‘beehive’ fireplaces, relax at a picnic table and enjoy a rock garden or reflecting pool—all handmade by unemployed stonemasons out of limestone quarried from the Minnesota River near the Mendota Bridge.

Chief Engineer Carl Frederick Graeser (1875-1944) was known as the "Father of the Belt Line". He promoted the idea for such a road patterned after the German autobahns.

Arthur R. Nichols was the Landscape Architect who designed the roadway and supervised its execution. Lilac bushes were laid out irregularly, separated by open space and set out against a backdrop of evergreens, elms, other trees and grassy slopes to fit the planting to the natural topography. The completed work included more than 7,000 bushes of 12 varieties of lilacs and thousands of other shrubs, vines, and trees.

Why is Highway 100 called Lilac Way?

In 1935, the Minneapolis Journal (now the StarTribune) suggested planting lilacs along Highway 100 to create “one of the most beautiful highways in America.” Inspired by Washington, D.C.’s cherry blossoms, the Journal presented their idea to the highway department.

Officials representing more than 50,000 enthusiastic citizens in 40 civic and business groups urged approval of the plan.   

The Journal’s July 28, 1935 headline proclaimed “Highway Department Approves ‘Lilac Way’ West of City, Journal’s Plan for Beautifying Belt Line OK’d.” Lilac Way was born. Twelve varieties of lilacs, including 2

,847 Persian lilacs and 5,408 common lilacs, were planted as part of the landscape plan of almost 30,000 deciduous plants.

The Golden Valley Garden Club sold lilacs for 15 cents each to raise money for lilacs. Intending to plant between Glenwood Avenue and Golden Valley Road, the Garden Club sold French lilac bushes and peony roots to pay for those plantings.

Because of the thousands of lilacs that lined the highway, the 12.5 miles of road between Edina and Robbinsdale became known as Lilac Way.

Those bushes, and many more shrubs, were planted by the landscape department of Mn/DOT and workers from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

The WPA provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression. It was designed to provide work for unemployed Americans during the Depression. These workers planted almost 30,000 deciduous plants, including the lilacs, along Highway 100.

Sadly, most of these lilacs have been lost in the almost 70 years since they were planted, to Mother Nature and road construction.

As a civic project conceived pro bono, Laukkonen Design has initiated a campaign to bring those lilacs back to Highway 100.

Here’s how the Campaign will work.