George Edward Kessler (July 16, 1862 – March 20, 1923) was an American pioneer city planner and landscape architect.

After living briefly in New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin, the family ultimately settled in Dallas, Texas, where George's father and uncle invested in a cotton plantation.

[3] After consultation with relatives, Clotilde decided that landscape architecture would combine the right degree of creativity and practicality to suit her son's temperament.

Upon completion of a course in civil engineering at the University of Jena, he toured central and western Europe and southern England for one year with a tutor in order to study civic design in major cities from Paris to Moscow.

In the February 15 letter, Kessler wrote that he was "certain of a situation in Central Park" and of an offer of a partnership with a florist in Woodlawn.

[7] Olmsted responded in March and urged Kessler "to be ambitious to be master in higher fields" than pleasure grounds and home gardens.

Also Olmsted encouraged Kessler to educate himself about nature through reading, reflection, and excursions, and to aim to free himself from German associations in order to expand his capabilities and to not limit his influence and opportunities.

Olmsted concluded by writing that the Kansas City, Fort Scott, and Gulf Railway Company might be in need of a man to take charge of a public picnic or excursion ground.

On March 18, Kessler provided additional information on his work in the Bowery and wrote that if he stayed with LeMoult, he would receive US$15 per week.

The last letter to Olmsted on March 23 stated that Kessler was taking a position with the railroad at Merriam Park in Johnson County, Kansas, for a salary of forty dollars per month.

Kessler, along with his mother and sister, moved to a house on John Mastin's Johnson County farm.

Although Merriam Park had been dedicated in 1880, when Kessler arrived there was only one building intended for visitors, a square dance floor, and nearly all the valuable trees had been cut down for cordwood.

In addition to his work at Merriam Park, Kessler prepared landscape plans and supervised the maintenance of many of the railroad's stations in Kansas and Missouri.

In 1887, he was commissioned to bring order to a hollow that formed the center of Kansas City's fashionable Hyde Park neighborhood.

Kessler landscaped the hollow and then encircled it with a boulevard to prevent residents from turning it into part of their backyards.

Kessler had earlier designed the grounds of Meyer's house in what is today's Kansas City Art Institute.

[11] Kessler later worked with Meyer to lay out the city's street grid including a parks and boulevard system.

His plans aimed to prevent the uncontrollable flooding of the Trinity River, improve the narrow, crooked downtown streets, fix the dangerous railroad crossings, and construct the Central Expressway.

[16]: 5–6 Kessler was hired to resolve a politically charged development dispute involving the park system of Indianapolis in 1908.

Kessler was a founder of the American Institute of Planners and an original member of the United States Commission of Fine Arts.