Plots in Time: Almerin Hotchkiss, Landscape Designer

Almerin Hotchkiss (1816-1903), featured in the upcoming book Pioneers of American Landscape Design Volume II, designed Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, said to be the first designed large-scale rural cemetery west of the Mississippi River.

A new piece of nonfiction just out is Movers and Shakers, Scalawags and Suffragettes: Tales from Bellefontaine Cemetery, by Carol Ferring Shepley. We mention this not because the author profiles people buried in that St. Louis cemetery, but because the cemetery was designed by Almerin Hotchkiss, who is featured in the upcoming book Pioneers of American Landscape Design Volume II.

Before Hotchkiss started designing cemeteries, he was the superintendent of Brooklyn?EUR??,,????'?????<

Meanwhile in St. Louis, June 1849, a cholera epidemic swept through the city, killing perhaps 10 percent of the city?EUR??,,????'?????<

In 1856, Hotchkiss began planning a university and suburb called Lake Forest, just outside Chicago.

Hotchkiss designed curved roadways, offered scenic vistas, preserved the existing vegetation and developed an impressive collection of trees that survive today. Hotchkiss was Bellefontaine?EUR??,,????'?????<

Hotchkiss also designed cemeteries for neighboring Illinois, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, and laid out Chippiannock Cemetery in Rock Island, Ill.

In 1856, Hotchkiss began planning a university and suburb called Lake Forest, just outside Chicago. Lake Forest was incorporated in 1861, one of the early large commercial residential developments in the Chicago region, predating Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux?EUR??,,????'?????<

The Lake Forest community design was guided by the area?EUR??,,????'?????<