Our Parks

Louisville’s Olmsted Parks and Parkways were created with great vision for the future of our city.

When Frederick Law Olmsted was commissioned to design a park system for Louisville in 1891, he was already the acknowledged father of America landscape design, famous for his work on Central Park in New York, the U.S. Capitol Grounds, and the Biltmore estate grounds. Olmsted’s greatest achievement, however, was his concept of creating a system of parks connected to tree-lined parkways, instead of freestanding parks as was the common practice. His concept was most fully realized in Louisville, the ultimate park system of his career, and one of only four completed such Olmsted systems in the world.