Hamilton Park is a neighborhood in

north North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

(

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

), named for Dr. Richard T. Hamilton, a physician and black civic leader. It is located in NorthwestLHAIA - Lake Highlands Area Improvement Association

Lake Highlands Area Improvement Association Neichborhood Map & Information
Retrieved 15 August 2017.

Lake Highlands Lake Highlands is a neighborhood constituting most of Northeast Dallas. The neighborhood is a collection of dozens of subdivisions served by Richardson ISD and Dallas ISD public schools, as well as an array of private schools. Geography Overview ...

, on the southeastern side of the

North Central Expressway North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

(

US 75 U.S. Route 75 is a major north–south U.S. Highway that extends in the central United States. The highway's northern terminus is in Noyes, Minnesota, at the Canadian border, where it once continued as Manitoba Highway 75 on the other side o ...

I-635 Interstate 635 may refer to: * Interstate 635 (Kansas–Missouri), a connector highway between Interstate 35 in Overland Park, Kansas and Interstate 29 in Kansas City, Missouri, signed as the Harry Darby Memorial Highway * Interstate 635 (Texas) I ...

interchange (

High Five High five is a friendly gesture in which one individual slaps another's hand. High five (and variants such as Hi5, Hi-5, and Hi-Five) may also refer to: Music * Hi-5 (Australian group), an Australian children's musical group * Hi-5 (Greek band), ...

), north of Forest Lane, and west of

DART Dart or DART may refer to: * Dart, the equipment in the game of darts Arts, entertainment and media * Dart (comics), an Image Comics superhero * Dart, a character from ''G.I. Joe'' * Dart, a ''Thomas & Friends'' railway engine character * Dar ...

's light-rail line. The neighborhood had a population of 2,148 in 1990.. By William H. Wilson. Retrieved 18 October 2006.

History

Hamilton Park's founding can be traced to two instances — in 1950, several

black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

homes in

south Dallas South Dallas is an area in Dallas, Texas. It is south of Downtown Dallas, bordered by Trinity River on the west, Interstate 30 on the north, and the Great Trinity Forest to the south and east. In recent years the City of Dallas and organizations ...

were bombed, and in 1953, a Dallas bond election okayed the demolition of housing in black neighborhoods so that Love Field airport could expand. This created a desperate need for black housing in the city, so home builders worked with the Dallas Negro Chamber of Commerce (today the Dallas Black Chamber of Commerce) to stir up activism to get developments built. The largest proposal was a community along the Trinity River, northwest of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

that blacks ultimately rejected due to its proximity to the "riverbottom." In May 1949,

Karl Hoblitzelle Karl Hoblitzelle (October 22, 1879 – March 8, 1967) was an American theater owner, real estate investor, and philanthropist. He was the co-founder of the Interstate Theaters Company, a chain of vaudeville theaters (later movie theaters), now a s ...

encouraged trustees of his charitable foundation to contribute to the cause. In 1953, the group donated

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

216,872.93 to the Dallas Citizens' Interracial Association to purchase a site for Hamilton Park. In addition, the group borrowed $423,619.99 from three Dallas banks to finance infrastructure. The neighborhood was dedicated in October 1953, opened in May 1954, and was complete by 1961. It contained a shopping center, a park, a twelve-grade school (later made six-grade), 742 single-family homes and an apartment complex. The school built in the neighborhood (now known as Hamilton Park Pacesetter Magnet) was originally segregated, but this ended in 1975 when the school started the Pacesetter program and parents of non-black children sent their kids to the school. Hamilton Park's prime location is at the SE portion of what is now the

High Five Interchange The High Five Interchange is one of the first five-level stack interchanges built in Dallas, Texas. Located at the junction of the Lyndon B. Johnson Freeway ( Interstate 635, I-635) and the Central Expressway ( US Highway 75, US ...

or the intersection of

(

) and

attracted interested in 1985 — that year, a developer proposed to purchase part or all of Hamilton Park for high-rise buildings but residents opposed the proposal and it fell through.

External links

*
Richardson Independent School District

Hamilton Park Pacesetter Magnet

References

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