track for horse racing. Beede's and Cort's facilities both began by offering family entertainment, but eventually became beer halls. Madison Park was refurbished for the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (A-Y-P Exposition) as White City Park. Leschi Park, which had become less profitable, was purchased outright by the city at that time. Madison Park also became less profitable (especially after Washington state adopted prohibition of alcohol in 1916) and was eventually sold to the city parks system. Madrona Park on Lake Washington and Alki Beach, originally reachable from downtown Seattle only by water, share a similar history. Rise of the parks system In the 1890s - long before the city took over the commercial parks - George F. Cotterill, assistant city engineer and chairman of the Paths Committee of the Queen City Good Roads Club, organized volunteers to build of bicycle paths, mainly along the lake. He was possibly inspired in this venture by the ideas of Schwagerl. In 1903, the park commissioners hired the Olmsted Brothers to design a comprehensive plan for the city's parks. They used Cotterill's bicycle paths as the basis of a citywide plan for a system of boulevards and parks. The Olmsted plan had both populist and elitist elements. On the one hand, it intended to place a park or playground within half a mile (800 m) of every home in the city. On the other hand, their boulevards connected wealthy residential neighborhoods and bypassed the tawdrier popular amusement areas. For example, Lake Washington Boulevard bypassed the Leschi waterfront, leaving the lake shore and passing through the uplands. The Olmsted plan became a de facto plan for the city's development. By 1917, nearly all of the major Seattle parks of today already existed. Woodland and Washington Parks were purchased in 1900. From 1903, Woodland Park on Phinney Ridge was home to a zoo that had previously been privately operated at Leschi. Most of Washington Park would become an arboretum in 1941. In 1904 the city charter was revised by initiative. The new charter enhanced the power of the Park Board, which it brought out from under the control of Seattle City Council and gave authority over not only parks but also playgrounds, parkways, and boulevards; the board was additionally granted its own tax base. Over the next eight years, voters approved $4 million in bond issues for the purchase of parklands. Seward Park (Bailey Peninsula) and Ravenna