On this day in 1903, Frederick Law Olmsted died in Belmont, Massachusetts at the age of 81. Olmsted was a an American landscape designer and regarded as the father of American landscape architecture. Among his designs include well-known urban parks such as New York City's Central Park and Prospect Park, and the nation's oldest state park, the Niagara Reservation in Niagara Falls, NY.

Olmsted's philosophy embodied the idea that common green space must always be equally accessible to all citizens. This principle of a "public park" seems obvious today, but was not so obvious during Olmsted's time. Olmsted not only created individual parks in many cities around the country, but he also conceived of entire systems of parks and interconnecting parkways that connected cities to green spaces. Examples of this include the park systems designed for Buffalo, NY and Milwaukee, WI. Other Olmsted creations include Mount Royal Park in Montreal, Cherokee Park in Louisville, Belle Isle Park in Detroit, Jackson Park and Washington Park in Chicago, the Emerald Necklace in Boston, and the landscape surrounding the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. 

Following Olmsted's retirement and death, his sons John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. continued the work of their firm, doing business as the Olmsted Brothers until 1950.