Pioneer Information
Born in Würzburg, Germany, Schwagerl was raised in Paris, France. At the age of 12, he immigrated to New York City and served as a salesclerk in several department stores. He attended Tilton Seminary (now Tilton School) in New Hampshire, considering a ministerial calling. Upon returning to France In 1865 he worked for architect Mons Mulat, who designed the grounds for the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris. A year later Schwagerl relocated to Hartford, Connecticut, to work for landscape gardener Jacob Weidenmann for eighteen months, before moving to the Midwest where he practiced in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska (1868–1869 and 1887–1888, respectively). In Lincoln he planned Grandview Residence Park (completed 1891). In between, he worked in St. Louis and then Cleveland—where, in the latter, he spent fifteen years. There he planned a park and boulevard system that included Gordon, Wade, and Payne Parks. In 1879 Schwagerl was commissioned to design River View Cemetery (1881, chapel unrealized) in Portland, Oregon. He settled in Tacoma, Washington, by 1890, where he produced plans for Wright Park and Point Defiance Park (both 1890–1892).
As superintendent of parks in Seattle from 1892 to 1895, Schwagerl laid out Kinnear Park (1892–1894), Denny Park (1893), and made preliminary plans for City (now Volunteer) Park. He also proposed a park and boulevard system—with a park located at each corner of the city (Alki Point and the present sites of Seward, Discovery, and Magnuson Parks, 1892–1903)—where nature and public recreation were harmoniously integrated. When the Seattle Board of Park Commissioners ultimately engaged Olmsted Brothers for this project in 1903, Schwagerl was commissioned by the Hunter Tract Improvement Company to design the 200-acre Mount Baker Park subdivision. During the next two years, he worked in private practice, first in Tacoma and then in Seattle, designing estates and real estate subdivisions. Schwagerl died in 1910 at the age of 68.
