Fairmount Park Vintage Philly 1902 Postcard

From an authentic stereoview card in the private collection of Scenes from the Past. Fairmount Park is the municipal park system of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It consists of 63 parks, with 9,200 acres, all overseen by the Fairmount Park Commission. The park system is named after its first park, Fairmount Park, which occupies nearly half the area of the whole system, at over 4,100 acres. Today, the Commission divides the original park into East and West Fairmount parks. The original domain of Fairmount Park consisted of three areas: "South Park" or the South Garden immediately below the Fairmount Water Works extending to the Callowhill Street Bridge; East or "Old Park" which encompassed the former estates of Lemon Hill and Sedgeley; and West Park, the area now comprising the Philadelphia Zoo and the Centennial Exposition grounds. The South Garden predated the establishment of the Park Commission in 1867 and Lemon Hill and Sedgley were added in 1855–56. After the Civil War, work progressed on acquiring and laying out West Park. In the 1870s, the Fairmount Park Commission acquired industrial properties along the Wissahickon Creek although this is not considered Fairmount Park proper. Likewise the Schuylkill River Trail is a modern addition and was not included in 19th-century acquisitions.