Location Memorial, Houston Created 1924 | Area 1,466 acres (6 km) | |
 | ||
Type Municipal (Houston, Texas) Operated by Houston Parks and Recreation Department | ||
Memorial Park, a municipal park in Houston, Texas, is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. Opened in 1924, the park covers approximately 1,466 acres (6 km2) inside the 610 Loop, across from the neighborhood of Memorial. Memorial Drive runs through the park, heading east to downtown Houston and west to the 610 Loop. I-10 borders the park to the north. The park was originally designed by landscape architects Hare & Hare of Kansas City, Missouri.
From 1917 to 1923, the land where the park currently exists was the site of Camp Logan, a World War I US Army training camp. During wartime, the training camp was located on the far west boundaries of Houston. After the war in early 1924, Will and Mike Hogg, purchased 1,503 acres (6 km2) 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 serving in World War I. The park is adjacent to the Camp Logan, Crestwood, and Rice Military neighborhoods.
The park includes the 18-hole Memorial Park Golf Course, Texas’s top-rated municipal golf course which opened in 1936. The course has a course rating of 73 and a slope rating of 122. The golf course was designed by John Bredemus. The course was renovated at the cost of $7 million in 1995..The ashes of former professional golfer Dave Marr were spread over the course after Marr's death, as Memorial Park was the course where Marr learned to play golf.
The park also has facilities for tennis, softball, swimming, track, croquet, volleyball, skating, cycling and a running course (2.93 miles), and is very popular with Houston joggers. The park is also home to the Seymour Lieberman Exercise Trail, a 2.93 mile 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 Houston Arboretum and Nature Center, an arboretum and botanical garden, sits on 155 acres (0.6 km2) within the park. The Nature Center building was constructed in 1967.
Becks Prime 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.