Edward Otto Schwagerl (January 14, 1842 — January 27, 1910), more frequently referred to as E. O. Schwagerl, was a Bavarian-American landscape architect who served as Superintendent of Parks for Cleveland, Ohio, and Seattle, Washington. He designed or contributed to the design of a number of cemeteries and parks, including Gordon Park and Riverside Cemetery in Cleveland, Wright Park and Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington, and Denny Park and Kinnear Park in Seattle, and also proposed a master plan for Seattle's park system. Life Schwagerl was born to Leonard and Madaline Schwagerl on January 14, 1842, in Würzburg, Bavaria, but lived his early life in Paris, where he was educated by private tutors. At age 12, he traveled alone to New York with plans to accompany his brother on a trip to Costa Rica, but when his brother failed to meet him, he was forced to find work in restaurants and department stores. He began attending the New Hampshire Conference Seminary (now the Tilton School) in Tilton, New Hampshire, at age 19 and considered a career as a minister before deciding against it. He served as an engineer in the Civil War from 1864 to 1865, after which he returned to Paris for a time. During this second stay in Paris, he assisted an architect who was designing the grounds for the Exposition Universelle of 1867. Upon returning to the United States, Schwagerl worked for landscape architect Jacob Weidenmann in Hartford, Connecticut for 18 months, helped prepare Weidenmann's book on landscape gardening, and by 1868 was working as an architect in Omaha, Nebraska. He moved several times in the following decade, and in 1870 was working in St. Louis, Missouri before moving his firm back east to Philadelphia, and by 1880 he was living in Cleveland, Ohio. By 1889 he was living in Tacoma and lived either there or Seattle for the rest of his life. Family and personal life Schwagerl was an avid Theosophist who travelled to help set up local Theosophist branches and delivered lectures on topics such as Occultism. He briefly moved to Kingston, Washington, in 1892 with the aim of establishing a Theosophist colony. He married Ella Varnes in Cleveland in 1883. He filed for divorce in 1892 and accused Ella of having an affair with her uncle, which she denied. Ella alleged cruelty in a counter-claim, prevailed in court, and was awarded custody of