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Jens Jensen
Jens Jensen was born in Dybbol, Denmark. He emigrated to the
United States in 1884, eventually settling in Chicago, where he
worked in the Kirk soap factory and then as a street sweeper in
west Chicago parks. His enjoyment of working in the out-of-doors
and his winter work with a Swedish landscape gardener increased
his knowledge of the native plants of the area, and he advanced
rapidly in the Chicago Park District, becoming the foreman of the
Union and Humbolt Parks. His increasing interest in the plant varieties
indigenous to the prairie began to manifest itself in the Chicago
parks, where he used native perennials set against a background
of native trees and shrubs rather than continuing to install the
manicured flower beds like those of the west Chicago parks. He
created the American Garden in Union Park to reflect this new interest.
Although political conflicts within the park systems led to his
dismissal in 1900, he was rehired in 1905 as superintendent and
landscape architect of all the west parks.
In 1913 Jens Jensen invited a group of influential friends to
join him in forming a new conservation organization to be called
Friends of Our Native Landscape. Through the efforts of the Friends
several areas in Illinois became state parks, including Starved
Rock, where Jenssen admired the redbuds that would be incorporated
into many of his plans.
Between the years of 1910 and 1930 he completed commissions for
many prominent Americans, including the Henry Fords, the Edsel
Fords, Sears and Roebuck founder Julius Rosenwald, and Orlando
J. Buck, the father of Hazle Buck Ewing.
He was commissioned by the Davis Ewings to design Sunset Road in
1923-24, and his rendering is now on exhibit in the lower level
at Ewing Cultural Center. Records show that he did landscaping
plans for Hazle Ewing in 1932. His concept of a gently curving
road where both sunrise and sunset could be observed fit in well
with the Norman architecture of her
home, and he placed on the estate the hawthorn, redbud, maple,
and crab apple trees that he favored in his designs. Also in the
1930s Jenssen was commissioned to plan the Lincoln Memorial Garden
on the shore of Lake Springfield, Illinois
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