Oklahoma City’s 1910 Plan for Grand Boulevard by W.H. Dunn
November 6th, 2008In the course of my thesis research I have tracked down a copy of the 1910 plan prepared for the Oklahoma City Parks Commission by W.H. Dunn, a landscape architect from Kansas City. The book entitled: Oklahoma City: A report on its plan for an Outer Parkway and a plan for an Interior System of parks and boulevards (the complete report is available in .pdf – see below). This may very well be the first formal plan prepared for Oklahoma City, though there were previous planning efforts for individual developments like Classen’s streetcar neighborhoods or some of I.M. Putnam’s developments. I don’t have time to get into all of the details of the this plan and my thoughts right now, but I figured I could make a bunch of information I have discovered available and allow you to read and discuss. Please let me know if you have any insights or see any connections that you think are worth pursuing. Looking through this plan that contains some of the earliest ideas that helped shape Oklahoma City has certainly been a pleasure for me and I hope you enjoy them as well.
OUTER PARKWAY GENERAL PLAN
This actually represents one of the earliest and most complete maps of Oklahoma City. I have tracked down a couple maps that predate this one, but this is definitely the most complete and absolutely beautifully done. Keep in mind that this map is a combination of what existed and what was proposed – not all of the ideas came to fruition.
For a higher-resolution image of the map, download the .pdf at the bottom of the page.
GRAND BOULEVARD
CLASSEN BOULEVARD
DETAILED PLANS FOR NEW PARKS
Northeast Park – what became Lincoln Park
Southeast Park – what became Trosper Park
Southwest Park – what became Woodson Park
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE PLAN
These resources are all made available in .pdf. These files are quite large (please use right-click Save as…).
- Complete 1910 Dunn Report and Plan in b/w .pdf, 7.5mb – (click here)
- Large general plan color map, 8.9mb – (click here)
Also, I have full-size 300dpi scans of all images available and will consider sharing them – please email me if you are interested.
RELATED RESOURCES
These articles are from journals available for free through google books that reference this planning effort around the time it was carried out. They are helpful in completing the picture, though you have to take it with a grain of salt as early Oklahoma Citians were always hard at work selling their beloved city. I downloaded each journals complete .pdf and saved only the portion that contains the relevant article.
- “The Park System of Oklahoma City“ by Glenn Marston, appeared in The American City in 1909
- “How Oklahoma City Secured Its Park and Boulevard System“ by Will H. Clark, President of the Oklahoma City Parks Commission, appeared in The American City in 1910
- “The Park and Boulevards of Oklahoma City“ by S.T. Bisbee, appeared in Municipal Engineering in 1911
November 7th, 2008 at 9:22 am
Marvelous article, Blair! And thanks for making this most excellent contribution of the PDF file containing all 26 pages of the booklet. With your permission, I’d like to make a blog article comparing the 1909 map shown in your post with a very similar, but significantly different, map which was done two years later.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
[...] never seen the actual plan in print, but now Blair Humphreys has a copy of it, in all its yellowing splendor, from the days when we dreamed, and dreamed big. (It took us a while [...]
November 7th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Hey Doug – thanks. Definitely feel free to use any and all of it as you please. Please be sure and add a comment with a link to your post when it is finished.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Thanks, Blair. I suppose that you have the similar but different 1911 map but if you don’t feel free to use mine if it helps your research or paper in any way. This is one I actually own a paper copy of! A high-res image is available here: http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2007/08/okc-street-map-history.html#1911%20Planning%20Map
November 14th, 2008 at 12:31 am
Blair,
Great work! Where’s the picture of that house on 14th Street?
Dad
November 14th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Yeh…I found that picture of the house in a chamber pamphlet also produced in 1909. I need to read through it and then I will try to get it posted.
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:35 am
I love stuff like this. Thanks for posting.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
At last nights meeting of the Audubon Society of Central Oklahoma I saw a slide similar to the first picture in your web article during a wonderful presentation by Brian Dougherty, director of the Parks and Public Spaces Initiative at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. This was indeed an inspired and progressive vision for Oklahoma City. It is too bad that its worth was not recognized by successive generations and the areas for the boulevard set aside and preserved then developed as funds became available.
Blair, I’m glad Brian’s presentation led me to find your work as it is important that this information be preserved and fortuitous that it can be made so universally available on the internet. Thank you for your efforts, I wish you the best and for a short while I’ll allow myself to imagine what great works you could do in Oklahoma City if you were funded and given your head.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:12 am
[...] United States. Despite the addition of large parks on the edge of town constructed as part of the 1910 Parks and Boulevard Plan and the existence of other quality open spaces, such as Belle Isle Amusement Park north of the city [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 6:11 pm
[...] of Grand Boulevard, and the rights-of-way for significant portions of our interstate system. The 1910 Plan by Wilbur H. Dunn, it turns out, represents only a small part of a much longer story. I haven’t decided what [...]
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:22 pm
[...] firm was involved with projects including Fairlawn Cemetery, Belle Isle Park, Classen Boulevard, 1910 Dunn Parks and Boulevard Plan, and was hired by the city in 1920 to produce Oklahoma City’s first comprehensive plan, but [...]