One of the largest park systems in Minnesota began with David Torkildson sitting in the backroom of an Anoka County public works building more than 50 years ago.
He pretty much single-handedly acquired and helped develop most of Anoka County's 17 parks and conservation areas, said John VonDeLinde, a county parks official.
Most of the county's parks are on the Mississippi or Rum rivers, Rice Creek or a lake. "That provides unbelievable access to all these beautiful bodies of water where people can swim, fish, kayak and canoe," VonDeLinde said. "It's phenomenal. What David created is the envy of other counties in Minnesota."
Torkildson, of Columbia Heights, died Oct. 23 after suffering a stroke. He was 80.
The Minnesota native was working as a salesman when then-County Commissioner Albert Kordiak first envisioned a park system and tapped Torkildson to make it a reality.
"We had no parks department. No employees. No office. No county car. He started this all by himself," Kordiak said. "[Torkildson] built the county park system from zero. He did a miraculous job."
It all began in 1963 when the county transformed an area known as Pecks Woods, where kids went four-wheeling, into Highland Lake Park, later renamed Kordiak County Park, said Torkildson's daughter, Lynn Torkildson of Fridley. By the time he retired in 1994, her father had overseen the purchase of 8,000 of the 11,500 acres in the county park system.
During the early years, Torkildson mowed park grass, pruned trees and painted outbuildings, his daughter said. As the number of parks grew, so did the department's payroll and budget. But that didn't stop Torkildson from helping unclog a toilet, disperse a crowd of rowdy teens partying in a park at 3 a.m. or orchestrate the rescue of a wheelchair user who was stranded in Islands of Peace County Park, Lynn Torkildson said.
