The Panhandle

Laid out about 1872 and originally called The Avenue, the strip was constructed as a connecting carriage road from the edge of the developed city to the park, with a meandering roadway down the centre lined with trees and shrubs to mitigate the prevailing westerly winds. William Hammond Hall's stated intention was to plan and plant this Avenue reservation as a park, to impart a wooded effect, and by the overlapping of suitable tree masses to arrest the sweep of the winds through it. In the 1920s Masonic Street was extended across the Panhandle by voter-approved ordinance, over the objections of the Park Commission. The William McKinley Monument by Robert Ingersoll Aitken, bronze and marble on granite, 1904, the gift of the McKinley Monument Committee, stands at Fell Street and Baker Street; the fifteen-foot bronze figure at the top of the pedestal represents Justice. McKinley was shot on 6 September 1901 and died on 14 September 1901.