Greta Samwel: LOCAL COLUMN: Norman's regional parks and their namesakes' histories
Dec. 10—Andrews Park will be getting a major makeover in the next few years. Andrews is easily Norman's oldest park and is in need of some major league love.
The park is as old as our city itself. Residents once used the land as a community pasture and could stake their livestock there. Kids camped there.
In the 1920s and 1930s when motoring around the country became popular the park was an overnight carpark for travelers, mostly along the U.S. 77 highway just east of the park. The softball field had lights that allowed players to escape the wicked heat and play night games.
----The town's first park superintendent, L.J. Edwards, pushed for a wading pool and small zoo on the grounds in the late 1930s. Also in the 1930s, the amphitheater, recreation building, restrooms, tables and benches were placed in the park with the help of various Depression-era relief agencies. It's encouraging that those will be kept and enhanced as part of the makeover.
Fourth of July picnics, softball games and town celebrations were held there. It was known for many years as City Park but was renamed in honor of longtime parks superintendent J.A. "Ade" Andrews.
----Another of our city's major parks, Reaves Park, has also been upgraded, thanks to $10 million from the Norman Forward sales tax funds. A new sculpture was dedicated on the park's east side this past week. It's well worth the drive. Go at night since the "robot man" lights up.
Reaves was originally part of the U.S. Navy base drill field. When the Navy closed the bases after World War II, the University of Oklahoma got most of the South Base land and buildings but in 1961 the city of Norman received the field east of Jenkins Avenue.
The park was named for Ida Reaves, a longtime OU faculty member and recreation advocate. She served as chair of the women's PE department at OU from 1941 to 1946. She died in 1968 at age 71 and is buried in Norman's IOOF Cemetery.
The building on the corner of Jenkins Avenue and Constitution was once the city's Teen Center. It was one of the sites considered for the Adult Wellness Center which recently opened on Findlay Avenue. Ironically, most of the teens that remember the building are now seniors. Count me among them.
----Across town, another major park is named for an early-day Central State Hospital administrator Dr. David Griffin. The hospital was once a locked facility and inscribed on the hospital's Main Street front gate was "Norman's Institute for Violently Mentally Insane."
Legend has it that Dr. Griffin, a psychiatrist from North Carolina, personally chiseled the word "insane" off the sign in an early attempt to reduce the stigma of mental illness.
Thousands of patients have received care at the hospital which, at one time, employed hundreds of Oklahomans. It was a gated city within our city. The hospital had a dairy, (in what is now Griffin Park) a cattle operation, gardens, laundries, ice and power plants, and recreational areas for patients.
Like Reaves, Griffin Park has had a renaissance of sorts, too. The Norman Forward tax produced about $11 million in improvements. There are now 22 soccer fields and 1,500 parking spaces.
----The other regional park, Ruby Grant, is the city's first major park west of the interstate. It includes running and walking trails, a playground, dog park, disc golf park and a pavilion. Its history is one of my favorite stories.
Ruby Grant was an only child born in 1900 to homesteaders. She taught grade school and high school and college business and English. She never had children but as she grew older she thought of ways to benefit future generations of children.
Working with Ron Burton and the OU Foundation, she donated the land to the Foundation which later sold it to Norman at less than half of its appraised value. She never got to see the park that bears her name. She died on Feb. 7, 1998 at the age of 97. She lived a frugal life and avoided any spotlight. Now, her name, like that of Andrew, Reaves and Griffin, has become part of Norman's park history.
