 Many of Denver 's parks were acquired from state lands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries . This coincided with the City Beautiful movement , and Denver mayor Robert Speer ( 1904 – 12 and 1916 – 18 ) set out to expand and beautify the city 's parks . Reinhard Schuetze was the city 's first landscape architect , and he brought his German @-@ educated landscaping genius to Washington Park , Cheesman Park , and City Park among others . Speer used Schuetze as well as other landscape architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted , Jr. and Saco Rienk DeBoer to design not only parks such as Civic Center Park , but many city parkways and tree @-@ lawns . All of this greenery was fed with South Platte River water diverted through the city ditch . 
