McCrory Gardens, SDSU’s very own botanical garden, is commemorating its 60th anniversary this year by hosting various events that will highlight the vast history of the gardens.
August 8 marks the 60th anniversary of SDSU’s McCrory Gardens. Three events are to be hosted in celebration of this milestone. McCrory Gardens’ “All-Crew Reunion” and “Garden Party” will both happen on Aug. 1. All past and current McCrory employees are encouraged to attend the All-Crew Reunion from 5-6:30 p.m. Following that, all community members are invited to the Garden Party from 6:30-8 p.m.
The Garden Expo will take place from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Aug. 2. This event will include a guided tour of McCrory Gardens, a photo contest, snow cones and more. The guided tours will feature 22 different signs displaying photos of what McCrory Gardens looked like in prior years.
McCrory Gardens long history
Until 1965, the horticulture research grounds were located where the Bailey Rotunda and Wagner Hall buildings stand now.
“They (Peterson and McCrory) were informed that there’s decisions being made that more academic rooms needed to be built and they’re going to be built where the horticulture grounds were … so in 1965 is when they literally uprooted,” said McCrory Gardens’ director of operations, Lisa Marotz. Marotz is an SDSU alum and has been working at McCrory since 2016.
Sam McCrory and Ron Peterson led the arboretum and botanical during its location transition. McCrory served as the former head of SDSU’s Department of Horticulture, Forestry, Landscape and Parks (which is now called the Department of Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science) until his death in March of 1964. Peterson, who replaced McCrory as department head until 1984, recently celebrated his 103rd birthday, and plans to attend the 60th anniversary events.
Prior to McCrory Gardens’ existence, the land where it now is located on the east side of the SDSU campus was used to grow crops for SDSU livestock, Marotz said. After relocation and transformation, on Aug. 8, 1966, McCrory Gardens were named after Sam McCrory.
People describe McCrory and Peterson as “humble,” Marotz said.
“I feel all of us really try to lift up the work that they (Peterson and McCrory) did because it is a big deal … it’s very important to have people with passion like that,” Marotz said.
Other changes to the Garden throughout the years
The Education and Visitor Center building was built in 2012, after 46 years of McCrory Gardens’ presence on campus.
“It was meant to be a space where people can gather and get refreshed if they’re travelers,” Marotz said.
Marotz said the Education and Visitor Center was also built with event hosting in mind. Weddings were hosted at McCrory Gardens during the first year of the building’s existence. Now, on average, the gardens host between 25 and 30 weddings per year.
Over the years, the gardens gained several different features that hold specific meanings. There is a sensory garden, targeted for visitors of all ages to stimulate all five senses. Along with that, Mickelson Grove was made in honor of George S. Mickelson, a former South Dakota governor who died in a plane crash in 1993.
Jane Devorak, who worked at SDSU in the student loans collections department for 53 years, began working alongside McCrory Gardens in 2018. When Devorak’s friend passed away, she requested a bench in her honor. This project was the beginning of the “Centre Point” at McCrory Gardens. The name for this part of the garden comes from a saying of Devorak’s, Marotz said.
“’If you get lost in the maze of life, look for center and start again.’ She (Devorak) wanted people to be able to come and sit and have a cup of coffee,” Marotz said. “She loved having coffee with friends or there’s room enough for strollers and a couple parents maybe just want to come and hangout.”
As far as the future for McCrory Gardens, Marotz has been working with Paige Cain, program coordinator at SDSU’s American Indian Student Center. Marotz and Cain wrote a grant application and were recently awarded $10,000 to redo all four of the Prairie Medicinal Garden’s plaques to include the Dakota Lakota names for the plants, as well as the English and traditional Latin names, Marotz said.
“It’s a pleasure to be able to share the education passively as well as just being able to get it out there and tell it like it was,” Marotz said.
