Memorial Park, a municipal park in

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

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 ...

, is one of the largest urban parks in the

United States 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 primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Opened in 1924, the park covers approximately mostly inside the

610 Loop Interstate 610 (I-610) is a freeway that forms a loop around the inner city sector of the city of Houston, Texas. I-610, colloquially known as The Loop, Loop 610, The Inner Loop, or just 610, traditionally marks the border between the i ...

, across from the neighborhood of

Memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or works of a ...

. Memorial Drive runs through the park, heading east to downtown Houston and west to the 610 Loop. A small portion of land west of the 610 Loop bordered by Woodway Drive and Buffalo Bayou is also part of the park.

I-10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...

U.S. 90 U.S. Route 90 or U.S. Highway 90 (US 90) is an east–west major United States highway in the Southern United States. Despite the "0" in its route number, US 90 never was a full coast-to-coast route. With the exception of a short-lived ...

borders the park to the north. The park was originally designed by landscape architects Hare & Hare of

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. In 2016, the operation of the park was transitioned from the Houston Parks and Recreation Department to the Memorial Park Conservancy, a private non-profit organization with a mission to "restore, preserve and enhance Memorial Park."

History

From 1917 to 1923, the land where the park currently exists was the site of

Camp Logan Camp Logan was a World War I-era army training camp in Houston, Texas named after U.S. Senator and Civil War General John A. Logan. The site of the camp is now primarily occupied by Memorial Park where it borders the Crestwood neighborhood, n ...

, a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

training camp named after Illinois U.S. Senator and Civil War General

John A. Logan John Alexander Logan (February 9, 1826 – December 26, 1886) was an American soldier and politician. He served in the Mexican–American War and was a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War. He served the state of Illinois as a st ...

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the training camp was located on the far west boundaries of Houston. After the war in early 1924, Will and Mike Hogg, purchased of former Camp Logan land and sold the area to the city at cost. In May 1924, the City of Houston took ownership of the land to be used as a "memorial" park, dedicated to the memory of soldiers who lost their lives in the war. The park is adjacent to the

, Crestwood, and

Rice Military Rice Military is a neighborhood in Houston, Texas, United States. The Beer Can House is located in Rice Military. History The name originates from nearby Camp Logan, a World War I-era U.S. Army training camp, which was replaced by Memorial Park ...

neighborhoods. On April 25, 2018, philanthropists Rich and Nancy Kinder through their foundation, the Kinder Foundation, pledged $70 million to the Memorial Park Conservancy to accelerate redevelopment and restoration work.

Facilities

The park includes the 18-hole Memorial Park Golf Course, Texas's top-rated municipal

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

. Formerly the site of a nine-hole course launched in 1912, it was completely redesigned by John Bredemus and opened in 1936. The

course rating A golf handicap is a numerical measure of a golfer's potential that is used to enable players of varying abilities to compete against one another. Better players are those with the lowest handicaps. Historically, rules relating to handicaps have v ...

is 75.0 with a

slope rating The slope rating of a golf course is a measure of its relative difficulty for a bogey golfer compared to a scratch golfer. It is used by handicapping systems to equalize the field by accounting for the likelihood that, when playing on more diffic ...

of 130 from its back tees. Memorial Park hosted the

Houston Open The Cadence Bank Houston Open is a professional golf tournament in Texas on the PGA Tour, played in November. As a part of a restructuring of the schedule, the event moved to the fall in 2019. Because the tour year starts the previous fall, the ...

on the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized in all capital letters as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in the United States and North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also k ...

fourteen times and was renovated in 1995 at the cost of . The course will host the tournament again in the 2021 season (October 2020). The ashes of tour professional

Dave Marr David Francis Marr, Jr. (December 27, 1933 – October 5, 1997) was an American professional golfer and sportscaster, best known for winning the 1965 PGA Championship. Early years Marr was born and raised in Houston, Texas, the son of a prof ...

were spread over the course, as it was where the winner of the

1965 PGA Championship The 1965 PGA Championship was the 47th PGA Championship, played August 12–15 at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, a suburb southeast of Pittsburgh. Dave Marr won his only major championship, two strokes ahead of runners-up Bi ...

learned to play the game. The park also has facilities for tennis, softball, swimming, track, croquet, volleyball, skating, cycling, and a running course (). Very popular with Houston joggers, the running course is the Seymour Lieberman Exercise Trail, a crushed granite pathway that sees almost 3 million visits annually. For joggers used to running in the lush green surroundings it is disappointing to see the shrinkage in the number of trees as a result of drought and hurricanes. On the south side of Memorial Drive, there are miles of multi-use trails through the woods, a 'picnic' loop which is used heavily by road cyclists, softball fields, sand volleyball courts and a field for playing rugby or soccer. The softball fields are the home venue for the

Texas Southern Tigers The Texas Southern Tigers represent Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas, in intercollegiate athletics. They field sixteen teams including men and women's basketball, cross country, golf, and track and field; women's-only bowling, soccer ...

softball team. The

Houston Arboretum and Nature Center The Houston Arboretum and Nature Center (155 acres) is a non-profit arboretum and nature center located in Memorial Park at 4501 Woodway Drive, Houston, Texas. It is open daily with free admission. The arboretum was first conceived by Robert A. ...

, an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

and

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

, sits on within the park. The Nature Center building was constructed in 1967.

Becks Prime Becks Prime Equities, Ltd,Catering
." Becks Prime. Retrieved on March 31, 2010. ...

has a location on the grounds of the Memorial Park golf course, as does Smoothie King The restaurant is within the clubhouse, overlooking the golf course.Memorial Park
"

Becks Prime Becks Prime Equities, Ltd,Catering
." Becks Prime. Retrieved on March 31, 2010. ...

. Retrieved on March 31, 2010.

References

External links

Memorial Park Conservancy

Houston Arboretum and Nature Center

Memorial Park Golf Course
{{Houston, Texas Parks in Houston Neighborhoods in Houston Golf clubs and courses in Texas Softball venues in Houston World War I memorials in the United States 1924 establishments in Texas

History

Facilities

See also

References

External links