Forest Park
Denison, Grayson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The city of Denison’s first public park was established in 1872. The town was founded in that same year as a terminus for the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas (KAYT) Railroad and began as a melting pot for many different cultures. Originally conceived by Robert S. Stevens and the Denison Town Company, the park began with Stevens’ donation of six acres of land and the stipulation that the city solely use the land as a park and continue to preserve it. The city’s first official public gathering happened in 1873 when the city celebrated its first anniversary with a barbecue in the park. Forest Park was given its official name in 1875, due to the dense amounts of forested woods that covered the park grounds at the time. In 1922, a nationwide strike of shop-union employees against the KATY railroad made its way to Denison. As much violence ensued, Governor Pat Neff sent the Texas National Guard to help keep order among nearly 1,400 KATY railroad workers. In the park, the 142nd infantry regiment erected a large tent city called Camp Ellis; Camp Leeper was built to the west near the KATY car shops. Almost 300 civilian arrests were made from August 10 through October 21, 1922. The park has seen many improvements and additions over the years which include: tennis courts and a clubhouse, a skate park, playground with splash pad, cast iron fountain, and a restored bandstand. The original Munson Stadium was built in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and replaced by a 2014 stadium complex. Forest Park has been a source of pride and recreation in the heart of Denison for its citizens. Today, the park still serves as Denison’s premier downtown park while continuing to maintain its historic charm. (2017)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Denison established Forest Park in 1872, the same year the town was founded as a terminus of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas ("Katy") Railroad, when Robert S. Stevens donated six acres on the condition it stay a public park forever. The park hosted the town's first civic celebrations and took its name from the woods that once covered it. During the bitter 1922 nationwide railroad shopmen's strike, the Texas National Guard pitched a tent city here — Camp Ellis — as hundreds of arrests were made among some 1,400 Katy workers.
Why it matters
Forest Park ties a frontier railroad boomtown's civic pride to one of the great labor confrontations of the 1920s, when the state deployed troops against striking rail workers.
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Related people
- · Robert S. Stevens
- · Pat Neff
Related events
- · 1922 railroad shopmen's strike
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad
Denison, TX
Incorporated in 1865, the line that became the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad—universally known as "The Katy"—was the first railroad to cross Indian Territory and enter Texas from the north. Following an old cattle trail, it steamed into the brand-new town of Denison on Christmas Day 1872, named for a Katy vice-president. Branch lines soon fanned out across the state, and by 1904 the Katy ran more than a thousand miles of Texas track, hauling cattle, cotton, and passengers on trains like the "Texas Special."
Waples-Platter Grocery Company
Denison, TX
Founded in 1871 to feed the crews building the Katy railroad, this firm grew into Denison's first wholesale grocery house and, as Waples-Platter, one of the region's commercial giants. From its ornate 1885 headquarters on East Main—terra cotta lions' heads and cast-iron pilasters advertising its prominence—the company shipped its White Swan line across Texas. Its canning plant gave the nation Ranch Style Beans, the company's most enduring legacy.
North-South Railway Connection
Denison, TX
On Christmas Eve 1872, a Katy Railroad train reached the brand-new town of Denison, the culmination of a race to push rail south from Kansas through Indian Territory into Texas. Months later, in March 1873, a Texas Central train arrived from the south, completing the first continuous north-to-south rail service west of the Mississippi. Denison's mayor telegraphed cities across the country proclaiming the town's new role as a national rail link.
Joseph G. McCoy, Promoter of Chisholm Trail
Denison, TX
An Illinois livestock broker, Joseph G. McCoy (1837–1915) opened the first workable market for Texas cattle by securing rail cars and building loading pens at Abilene, Kansas — turning $5 longhorns into beeves worth $25 or more up north. He had part of Jesse Chisholm's trail surveyed and marked to guide the great drives through Oklahoma, over which some ten million cattle moved between 1866 and 1884. When the railroad reached Denison in 1872, McCoy moved here and helped launch a refrigerating company to ship dressed beef.