It’s all in the plan
Three and a half years ago, I drove the entire length of Oklahoma City’s Grand Boulevard, mostly, well, because I could. I noted at the time:
W. H. Dunn was a landscape architect in Kansas City in the early 1900s, eventually becoming the Superintendent of Parks. His duties in Kansas City, however, apparently didn’t prevent him from helping out other cities in need: in 1909, he developed the first official parks plan for Oklahoma City. One of the features in Dunn’s plan was a boulevard to encircle the city, connecting regional parks in each quadrant. Not much happened on that front until 1930, when the boulevard was incorporated into The City Plan for Oklahoma City, and the process of acquiring rights of way began.
I’d never seen it in print before, but now Blair Humphreys has a copy of the actual plan, in all its yellowing splendor, from the days when we dreamed, and dreamed big. (It took us a while to get back into the habit.)
Doug Loudenback »
7 November 2008 · 10:15 pm
Isn’t that a great find (and generous post) that Blair put together. I’m experiencing a bad case of map envy.