Tulsa's Old Locust Grove Park

[Hometown]

Hometown in front of the Locust Grove Recreation Center in 1959


Tulsa's Old Locust Grove Park

Nothing holds my attention like the places that Tulsa has lost.  One of those missing places is Tulsa's old Locust Grove Park.

If you head south out of downtown on Cincinnati and pass 13th Street then veer left towards the Broken Arrow Expressway you'll drive right over the site of the former park.  There is no longer a trace of it but it was once surrounded by Cincinnati, Detroit, 13th Place and 14th Street.

The Park's Early Years

The area that became Locust Grove Park is clearly outlined in a 1915 map of Tulsa though it was referred to simply as Locust Grove.  It may have been a stand of trees that was used like a park.  At the time the surrounding housing additions were known as Oak Grove (to the south), Oak Dale (to the east), Bayne Grove (to the west) and Brenen Reed (to the north).

In a 1930 map the park is labeled Locust Grove Park and the western border extended as far as Boston.  Oak Grove encompasses the homes south of 14th Street as well as the homes to the west of Boston.  The Oak Dale neighborhood to the east of Detroit is called the Oak Dale "suburb."  In a 1957 map the park shrank because Cincinnati had been extended and now formed the park's western border.  Homes to the west of Cincinnati are again named "Bayne" Addition.

I did not uncover exactly when the park was incorporated but a Tulsa Tribune column from 1970 states that Locust Grove Park was 50 years old which would make its beginning 1920.

Remember Tulsa Parks' famous wading pools?  Locust Grove Park received the first of the donated wading pools.  The pool was dedicated in 1921.

Following the end of World War II and with the advent of the Baby Boom, Tulsa Parks developed free summer play programs run by "trained supervisors in recreational work."  

In the summer time the parks were full of children playing softball, gymnastics and tennis.  Fun could be had joining a checkers, dominoes, horseshoe, ping pong or croquet tournament or learning how to swim or make crafts.  Bookworms could check out a book from a visiting bookmobile.

In 1946, Tulsa World writer Cecil Brown reported:  "Park officials ... predict the current outdoor season will be the greatest in the department's history."

Everything a Kid Could Need

By the 1950s Locust Park, as it was also known, had just about all the things that the Tulsa Parks offered and that meant it had everything a kid could need on a hot summer day in Tulsa.  

The park sported swings and a merry-go-round.  It had a large basket ball court and a wading pool, a native stone pool house and tennis courts as well as an indoor recreation center.  Fifty volunteer Tulsa Jaycees turned out to build an outdoor gym in 1957.  

Neighborhoods full of houses with kids hugged the park.  Small and mid-sized houses on modest lots faced the park on all sides except for 13th Place which had two apartment buildings in addition to houses.  There was also a brick apartment building at Detroit and 13th Place and an apartment building at 14th Street and Cincinnati facing Cincinnati.  The houses to the west of the park on Detroit sat up high on a small hill above a retaining wall.  A railroad track ran behind the houses on Detroit.

My comparisons aren't exact but today you could find a similar mix of houses between 15th, 18th, Peoria and Madison.  Brady Heights and Owen Park also have a similar look to the neighborhoods that flanked the park.  

Some of my very first memories are of Locust Grove Park.  In 1959 we lived on 14th between Cincinnati and Detroit.  I was six years old.  I can remember sitting in our small front yard at dusk and watching a group of square dancers under the lights of the basketball court.  The women wore layers of petticoats causing their colorful skirts to puff out and swirl around.  A man with a fiddle called out the dance moves.

It's hard now to imagine that children played in the park and around the neighborhood with little or no supervision.  We would take off and walk blocks into downtown or over to the Gunboat neighborhood or further to Tracy Park.  But we spent most of our time in Locust Grove Park.

Make Way for Progress

Eleven years later in 1970 when I was 17 I found myself living by old Locust Grove Park again.  I returned to the same block of 14th Street to rent a house with my older sister.  Our rent house sat facing the park.  

The construction of the Broken Arrow Expressway was moving along though it was far from completed.  You entered the Expressway east of Utica.  Like now, you used Cincinnati to get from downtown to the expressway.  Cincinnati curved through Locust Grove Park devouring a large corner section of the park where Cincinnati connected with 14th Street.  You would loop through the park and after Detroit you climbed a little hill and passed over railroad tracks.

The park's days were numbered.  By now the wading pool had become a splash pad and the park was in disrepair.  The homes to the immediate west of the park had been demolished for widening Cincinnati back in the 1960s.  There was a chain link fence at the edge of the park running along Cincinnati and 14th Street.  The park that had once been filled with children wasn't used much now.  And my sister and I only kept the rent house for a few months.

But in 1972 or maybe it was '73 I returned to Tulsa's old Locust Grove Park again to explore the abandoned houses that were about to be demolished for the expressway.  The houses in the neighborhoods surrounding the park had been bought up and emptied out and sat vacant.  Exploring those old houses was a great adventure.

Locust Grove Park and the surrounding neighborhoods were demolished for construction of the Broken Arrow Expressway in the mid-1970s.

Today almost nothing remains of Tulsa's venerable old Locust Grove Park.  Even memories have faded.  Folks that commuted past the park on their way to the Broken Arrow Expressway for years, have difficulty remembering the park.  Only a few of the old buildings remain.  Boston Avenue Methodist Church stands out.

Acknowledging an Old Friend

The most fitting tribute to the park that I have found was written by Tribune Business Editor Bob Foresman in his March 21, 1970 column.  

"Have we lost sight of the kids as we go pell mell about the task of building expressways, subdividing acreage and making Tulsa a bigger city?

...

I was exasperated after a recent church board meeting at which state highway department engineers told us that a new expressway interchange was going to require a segment of our off-street parking area.

But don't be alarmed, they said in essence.  A trade could be arranged, they felt sure, to give the church [Boston Avenue Methodist] part of a nearby park [Locust Grove], and not a single parking space would be lost.

This dismayed me a bit, because I had played there as a boy, splashed in the wading pool, snagged my pants on a rugged, old sliding board and learned to play tennis on its courts.

The park was an old friend of mine, and now after 50 years they were going to turn it into a concrete parking lot.

Nobody mentioned the kids who play there.  Few of us thought they were important or their needs as important as ours.  At least none of us said so."

Well said Mr. Foresman, wherever you are.  Thank you for sticking up for our friend.

Anyway folks, I would love to read anything anyone might remember about Tulsa's old Locust Grove Park.

January 31, 2007

[t-town transplant]

Hometown:

Although I live in Tampa now, I was born and raised in Tulsa and never knew of this park, but your story was a pleasure to read.

It brought back some great memories of those carefree days when we slept with the front door open and drank from the garden hose.

T-town Transplant

[carltonplace]

Hometown, do you have more pictures? I'd love to see what that area looked like before the highway, when Horace Mann was still a school.

[citizen72]

Very nice reading. I lived in Northwest Arkansas as a child and Tulsa and its offerings was like Disneyland to us country folks. It was a very magical place to travel to. Lived here for thirty four years now and I still have that same feeling about this great town. A lot of the old magic has been eliminated though.

[waterboy]

Good memories. Our park time in the fifties was divided between Kendal Park, which is now pretty much gone (thanks TU), and Tracy Park which had the deepest wading pool. One great memory I have is losing my shoes. When the large groups of kids would be dropped off for an afternoon of wading, sliding, swinging at the park we would all throw our shoes and clothes into a huge pile nearby. Someone liked my zippered Elvis shoes so much he took them and I had to walk home in Buster Browns!

[cecelia]

I remember Locust Grove Park. In fact, I remember that little area being one of my favorite in Tulsa. It had a lot of heart and soul to it, and Tulsa really did suffer by its loss.

I understand that progress requires that we lose some things, but it seems that Tulsa has too often willingly put its very best on the chopping block to satisfy - whatever.

Thanks for those memories. I'd also love to see more pictures!

[shadows]

How about Central Park where the big hole is at the present that protects the park from flooding?   The simple life that was being enjoyed during the times before TV's, fast cars, ribbons of concrete expressways has give its place in history to the exploiters of children needs.  We need bigger cities so we can build bigger bureaucracies at the cost of the open areas.   During the 40's I lived in the shadows of the church on Boston.   But the city grew and with growth came the needs for many things that we can not do without.    

[Hometown]

Okay, this is the best I can do for now.  More pics will follow with other stories.  

Meanwhile, hey, cute doll. It's 1960 and I'm in the front yard of the house on 14th Street four houses up from Cincinnati.  Locust Grove Park is directly behind me across 14th.  You can see the Ambassador Hotel through the trees.



One more.  This was taken in the front yard of our next house on Norfolk in 1960.  That house still stands, three houses up the hill from the Tennis Courts at Tracy Park.  Back then The Continental Skating Rink was across the street to the right at the bottom of the hill at 11th.  The houses behind me were demolished for Hwy 75.  When this picture was taken the train tracks ran behind those houses and we would get hobos coming around from time to time asking for food.  Many of the houses in Tracy Park Addition were larger than those pictured here.

[cecelia]

Those were the best houses - especially the porches.

I'm trying to place those houses. I know them ...

[pmcalk]

Hometown, that is a wonderful story.  There was a time when cities were built around neighborhood parks.  The yards were much smaller, but there was always a nearby place to play a game of baseball, football, whatever.  I think such an environment was helpful to kids--it created independence, but it also forced children to learn to get along.  Nowadays, kids spend time in their own yards, on their own play equipment, with their own toys.  No need to share.  If you are not getting along with a friend, you can each go to your separate yards.  Parks are communal, and they provide kids with great life lessons.  But parks anymore are huge, automobile dependent pieces of land.  Before, kids would go hang out at the park while mom did chores; now parks are a chore in themselves--mom (or dad) has to load the kids in the car, pack all necessary items, drive to the nearest park, and supervise the kids the whole time.  No wonder they are empty so often.  And even when kids do go, with parents constantly supervising, they don't get the opportunity to learn how to solve problems on their own.

[Hometown]

quote:Originally posted by PRH

My grandmother lived in the eleven hundred block of S. Newport.  This was just South of Tracy Park, up the slight hill.

I too remember the bums coming up from the railroad tracks.  My grandmother always gave them something to eat; probably a habit she picked up from the Great Depression. I think those were the tracks of the Midland Valley RR.

I can't say I remember the Locust Grove park.

PHR, There was a lady on that block of south Newport about two or three houses up from Tracy Park on the west side of the street that had a little day care like program in her home.  She organized games and prepared snacks and read to kids.

Do you remember Brewster's?  Art Cat mentioned that in a post.  Brewster's was that wonderful Toy Store on Peoria.  I think it was across the street from the graveyard.  I can remember ogling the toys in the windows of Brewster's.

Shadows, do you have any memory of playing in Locust Grove Park back in the '40s?

The swings at Locust Grove Park were especially tall and you could almost build up enough momentum to go over the top.  In fact I think my sister did once.  There were large trees nearby and you could touch the branches if you really leaned into it.

Cecelia, are your memories childhood or teen years?

[MichaelBates]

This is wonderful. Thank you so much, Hometown, for posting your photographs and memories along with your thorough research on the history of the neighborhood.

[Double A]

Wasn't this area or maybe just east of it featured  in Rumble Fish, or maybe the outsiders? Was the area where Westervelt's gated community(feh) now sits behind LJS part of this neighborhood? Thanks for posting, keep 'em coming.

[AMP]

http://www.tulsatvmemories.com/toyshop.html


Brewster's Toy Shop  Memories on Tulsa TV

http://www.tulsatvmemories.com/brewster.html

[Steve]

Love the snapshots Hometown.  I really like the one of you holding the doll, with the car peeking out of the bushes in the background.  Looks like a 1957-1960 DeSoto to me (Firedome, Firesweep, Fireflite?), with the triple tailights.  A "Forward Look" Chrysler product, like the 1957 Plymouth buried downtown, soon to be unearthed.  That was back when cars had more personality and you could tell a make just by a glimpse of the tailights!

I have shoeboxes full of similar family photos from the same time period in Tulsa.  If I figure out how to post photos, maybe I will start a "Your Favorite Childhood Tulsa Photos" thread!