Frick Park grew from Henry Clay Frick's gift to the City of Pittsburgh. Legend says that in 1908, when Frick told his 17-year-old daughter Helen she could have anything she wanted for her debutante party, she asked for a park where Pittsburgh's children could enjoy nature, though the park's origins cannot be confirmed that way. When Frick died in 1919, he bequeathed 151 acres south of his Point Breeze mansion, Clayton, and established a $2 million trust fund to help create and maintain the park. The City moved ahead in earnest in 1925 by acquiring 190 additional acres, giving Frick Park a size and scope similar to Schenley and Highland Parks, and the park officially opened in 1927. Early planning began with Lowell and Vinal, then passed to Blum, Weldin and Company after Mr. Lowell's death, but Innocenti and Webel, a highly respected landscape architecture firm in the United States, had the greatest influence between 1935 and 1957 by designing more trails, planning structures, and laying out green spaces and plantings while keeping active uses such as athletics at the park's edges and emphasizing a natural experience at its heart. The park's distinctive gatehouse entrance structures were designed by architect John Russell Pope from 1931-1935. Nearby, the Bowling Green opened in 1938 as Pennsylvania's only public lawn bowling green, with two 120-foot square greens that can accommodate seven games at one time, and it is maintained with its clubhouse by the Frick Park Bowling Club.
