making plans to subdivide it into building lots. Around that time the city renamed the park DuPont Square, perhaps to encourage the family to keep it a park, but the name never stuck. Louisville's civic leaders finally stepped up in 1904 and purchased the old estate for $297,500 ($ in dollars). The DuPonts had made contingency plans for a public park on their property as early as 1883. In 1901, they hired nationally renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to draw up a ground plan. Those plans finally came to fruition in 1904–05 when the old DuPont mansion was demolished and the basic outlines of the park as seen today were put into place. At the time, the Spanish mission style of architecture was in vogue, and Olmsted's firm used it brilliantly in its design of an open-air women and children's shelter and a gymnasium for men and boys complete with a swimming pool in the basement. It's one of only a handful of Spanish Mission style structures in Louisville. He also created a wading pool and athletic fields. The original walking trails from Louisville's 1883 Southern Exposition, which spilled over into the DuPont estate, were kept in place. In 1970, the gymnasium, by then long gone, was turned into a substation for the Louisville Metro Police Department. A few years later, the shelter was radically altered. Its windows were filled in with concrete block and stucco and a drop ceiling installed to cover up the glorious yellow pine ceiling so that it could become an enclosed meeting place for the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council and other neighborhood associations. (At the time, the council didn't have the funds to do a proper restoration). In 1976 an amphitheater and wooden playhouse were built. The new playhouse was used to host the free annual summer performances of William Shakespeare's works, which had been held in the park since 1962. Since 1988 the annual event has been called the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival and is still free to the public. In 2004 the park celebrated its centennial. Over the last ten years, due to the financial contributions of the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council, neighborhood associations, and several neighborhood philanthropists, the old women and children's shelter has been restored. The concrete block and stucco were removed, new windows overlooking the park installed, and the yellow pine ceiling returned to its original splendor. The park is