EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2014.
Money was hard to come by in the 1930s, but if you wanted something strongly enough there was always a way to scrape it together.
The folks who lived in the neighborhoods near Grace Street wanted a city park where their kids could play close to home, so they took it upon themselves to raise the money it took to buy 24 acres with a small creek.
It took five years to raise the money during the Great Depression, with bake sales, fundraising picnics, dances, minstrel shows, and walking door-to-door collecting nickels and dimes. A government project — the WPA — took care of building the pool and the roadways, and then neighbors put together the pavilion.
On an overcast day in 1937, a grand ceremony was staged when the park was presented to the City of Mansfield.
