Seattle Parks and Recreation (officially the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR)) is the government department responsible for maintaining the parks, open spaces, and community centers of the city of Seattle, Washington. The department maintains properties covering an area of over , which is equivalent to roughly 11% of the city's total area. Of those , are developed. As of 2007, the department managed 450 parks, 485 buildings, and of boulevards, with facilities including 185 athletic fields, 122 children's playgrounds, four golf courses, 151 outdoor tennis courts and an indoor tennis center, 26 community centers and two outdoor and eight indoor swimming pools. It also maintains fishing piers, boat ramps, the Volunteer Park conservatory, the Washington Park Arboretum, the Seattle Aquarium, and Woodland Park Zoo. The department's operating budget in 2007 was US$117 million. Its largest park is Discovery Park in Magnolia, while the oldest is Denny Park in South Lake Union. Seattle Parks and Recreation is run by a superintendent and advised by a volunteer Board of Park Commissioners. History Early Seattle parks The Seattle Board of Park Commissioners was established in 1887 to oversee the city's first park, then known simply as Seattle Park. Originally the Seattle Cemetery, the site was donated in 1884 by Seattle pioneer David Denny. (The park is today named Denny Park in his honor.) In 1892 the position of Park Supervisor was created, with E.O. Schwagerl being the office's inaugural holder. There was no budget at the time to purchase parks, but Schwagerl envisioned parks extending north along the Lake Washington shore from the Bailey Peninsula (today's Seward Park) to Madison Park with a boulevard along roughly the northern third of this area, from Leschi to Madison Park. It was no coincidence that Schwagerl would single out Leschi and Madison Parks. Both of these stood on the lakeshore at the end of trolley lines and were already privately developed as parks of a sort by the promoters of those lines. Leschi had a hotel, cottages, and footpaths leading through virgin forest, and John Cort built a six-story casino there in 1892, which was also a prominent early vaudeville venue. John J. McGilvra's Madison Park had cottages and tent platforms, but also an amusement park. George K. Beede's 500-seat Madison Park Pavilion had a baseball park (eventually used by an early incarnation of the Northwest League), excursion boats touring the lake, and eventually a