Grandview Drive

The district's legal name, "Pleasure Driveway and Park District of Peoria", is a reflection of Grandview Drive's original prominence in the Peoria park system. Of particular note, the drive is said to have been one of the first "linear parks" of its time.

President Theodore Roosevelt is said to have proclaimed it the "World's Most Beautiful Drive" during a 1910 visit.[3] Though this is more a paraphrase of his sentiments than an exact quote, local legend cites this as fact. Grandview Drive was the original location of WMBD (AM); although the WMBD callsign was assigned in FCC sequence, the callsign is associated with Roosevelt's comment.

Oscar F. Dubuis was hired as the landscape gardener and engineer.[2] Dubuis was born in Geneva, Switzerland. He served a four-year apprenticeship under Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York's Central Park.[2] Dubuis worked for the West Park Board of Chicago for twenty-three years.[2]

In 1896, the park board began making plans for Grandview Drive and securing property rights. In 1902, Dubuis began developing the plan for the drive.[2] He tried to keep as many original trees as possible, including species of white oak, red oak, hickory, sugar maple, Norway maple, and sycamore.[2]

Construction began on October 14, 1903. No machines were used; hand labor and horses performed all the labor on the overgrown hilly terrain.[2] One year later, the road bed had been cut.[2] The original base was made from gravel and sand, which became dusty and deeply rutted after cars became popular. In the mid-1930s, the road was repaved with asphalt.[2]

Construction of a five-story observation tower began in 1905 and was completed in 1906.[2] After roughly forty years, the tower was razed in 1942 due to corrosion and a high cost of repair.[2] It was used as scrap metal for the World War II effort.[2] Today the northeast corner of the site is home to the Pimiteoui marker, relocated to the site and installed by the Peoria Park District in 1975.[2]