Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
COUNCIL RINGS
COUNCIL RINGS. Jens JENSEN, a famed landscape architect, was invited to Dubuque by Alfred CALDWELL, Dubuque's park superintendent, during the work on EAGLE POINT PARK. According to Steven Ulstad, a Dubuque architect and valued reference on this topic, Caldwell and Jensen had worked together in Chicago prior to the start of the Great Depression. Jensen suggested the construction of a council ring at Eagle Point overlooking the MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Another was constructed at MURPHY PARK.
Jensen saw these stone circles as symbols of traditions from both the Viking past of his Danish ancestors and of Native Americans. Because a group sitting on these stones would be gathered in a continuous circle, there would be no head of the table, no hierarchy, but a simple statement that all members of the community were important to it.