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    Historic Dallas Parks
    Historic Dallas Parks
    Historic Dallas Parks
    Ebook171 pages32 minutes

    Historic Dallas Parks

    By John H. Slate and Dallas Municipal Archives

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    About this ebook

    Dallas, called Big D, is the eighth largest city in the United States and rests on 343 square miles of rolling prairie. To meet the growing recreational and cultural needs of its citizens, the Dallas Park and Recreation Department maintains more than 23,018 park acres one of the largest municipal park systems in the country. Dallas has over 400 individual parks, including community centers, swimming pools, athletic fields, and a metropolitan zoo. From such well-known places as Fair Park, home of the State Fair of Texas and the Texas Centennial Exposition of 1936, to Dealey Plaza, and to lesser-known neighborhood parks, Dallas parks have a rich history stretching from the days when Dallas was a western boom town to a 21st century metropolis. Historic Dallas Parks explores the origins and early development of this nationally recognized system with interesting background stories and facts and illustrated with photographs and historical documents from the collections of the Dallas Municipal Archives.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJul 5, 2010
    ISBN9781439624630
    Historic Dallas Parks
    Author

    John H. Slate

    Established in 1985 as a division of the city secretary�s office, the Dallas Municipal Archives documents and preserves the actions of the City of Dallas and provides public access to the permanent and historically valuable records of city government. John H. Slate is the city archivist.

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      Book preview

      Historic Dallas Parks - John H. Slate

      Department.

      INTRODUCTION

      The city of Dallas, the eighth-largest city in the United States, boasts a municipal park system that provides leisure, recreational, and cultural activities for the citizens of Dallas and the general public. It maintains more than 23,000 park acres, including over 400 individual parks. Those parks include recreational facilities such as community centers, swimming pools, athletic fields, and a metropolitan zoo. The city’s first two parks, City Park (purchased in 1876) and Fair Park (purchased in 1904), predate the organization of the Park and Recreation Department. In response to management issues and concerns, an administrative park board was created by a city charter amendment in early 1905, and the first board members were appointed by Mayor Bryan T. Barry on May 23, 1905.

      Dallas Parks have played a major role in the lives of Dallas citizens and, for that matter, anyone visiting Dallas. Long before radio, television, and video games, children and adults looked to parks for recreation, health, and even edification. This book tells the story of the early history of City of Dallas parks and park facilities, using selected parks with both local and national historical and social significance. Examples of parks with interest far beyond Dallas include Dealey Plaza (site of the assassination of John F. Kennedy), Fair Park (site of the 1936 Texas Centennial—essentially a world’s fair), and parks built or augmented by New Deal agencies in the 1930s (featuring Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps architecture). Some parks have important social significance, such as Trinity Play Park with its pioneering after-school program in the 1910s that cared for children whose parents worked nearby in the cotton mills. Many of the parks served as distribution sites for free milk for children, an early childhood health program put on privately by women’s groups in the city.

      Some parks have varied and fascinating histories, such as Fair Park, home of the annual State Fair of Texas and the site of the 1936 Centennial Exposition. The centennial was opened by Pres. Franklin Roosevelt and attracted over six million visitors at a cost of around $25 million. The state fair itself—the largest state fair in North America—is no slouch as an attraction. Fair Park’s buildings, mostly dating from the Centennial, make up the largest campus of art deco architecture in America.

      White Rock Lake is the in-town lake that started as a reservoir but has become an oasis of rest, athletics, and recreation. Other stories include the tale of the city’s largest donation of land from Dr. W. W. Samuell, who bequeathed land and funds that today would be valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Over a dozen parks have been created from this single donation.

      If there is any richness to this small volume, it is because of the quality of the holdings of the Dallas Municipal Archives. Established in 1985, the Municipal Archives is a part of the city secretary’s office of the City of Dallas and is a repository for the historic and permanently valuable records of city government. Its goal is to document and preserve the actions of the city of Dallas and to effectively provide public access to information. The archives serve to help citizens and city employees research the story of the city, such as the history of a neighborhood, a historic election, or events in the city’s past in a variety of ways. The photographs and documents reproduced in this book are just a sample of the treasures that await all researchers.

      One

      DALLAS’S FIRST PARKS

      City Park, sometimes called Old City Park, is Dallas’s first municipal park. It began in 1876 when J. J. Eakins offered 10 acres of land to the City of Dallas, partly purchased on behalf of the city by W. J. Keller. Presently the park occupies 13 acres. The property included the city’s first water supply, and for many years it was a focal point of recreation and entertainment. It was also the first site of the Dallas Zoo, which was started in 1888 with the purchase of two deer and two mountain lions. The zoo was later moved to Marsalis Park, where it exists today. For a few years in the 1930s, the park was briefly renamed Sullivan Park in honor of Dan Sullivan, a former water superintendent. During the late 1930s, it was the site of labor demonstrations.

      In later years, City Park embarked on a renewed life as home to Dallas Heritage Village, which is a living history museum that teaches the history of Dallas and North Central Texas through its collections of historic buildings and furnishings, representing the period from 1840 to 1910.

      Fair Park is well

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