Carl Rust Parker

Carl Rust Parker

Quick Facts

Significance:

Partner in Olmsted Firm

Place of Birth:

Andover, MA

Date of Birth:

1882

Place of Death:

Boston, MA

Date of Death:

November 29. 1966

Notable Projects while at the Olmsted Firm:
George Washington Masonic National Memorial, Alexandria, Virginia
Maine State Capitol Grounds, Augusta, Maine
Grounds for the National Cash Register Company, Dayton, Ohio
Various Projects for the University of Mississippi in Oxford and Jackson, Mississippi

Carl Rust Parker was born in Andover, Massachusetts in 1882. He attended Phillips Academy, and immediately after graduating in 1901, began working for the Olmsted firm. He left the Olmsted firm in 1910 to set up practice in Maine, and quickly became the state’s most prominent landscape architect. In his private practice, he left a lasting imprint on that state in the form of private residences, parks and public buildings. A listing in the 1911-1912 Maine Register advertised him as a “Designer of Parks, Playgrounds, Private Grounds, Gardens and Land Developments.” He returned to the Olmsted firm after World War I, eventually becoming a partner in 1950, and he worked there until his retirement in 1961.

At this time, he was involved with a wide range of projects, which included estate and campus designs, and planning the grounds of various industrial companies, such as for the National Cash Register Company in Ohio, for the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey and for the Kohler Company in Kohler, Wisconsin. Throughout his career, Parker was greatly involved in the American Society of Landscape Architects, becoming a member in 1908 and a Fellow in 1915.