Wooldridge Park at 100-Pride of the Austin Bar?
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WOOLDRIDGE PARK AT 100-PRIDE OF THE AUSTIN BAR? TRAVIS COUNTY’S COURTHOUSE SQUARE NEEDS HELP! By Richard F. Craig Texans have always had a thing about their courthouses and courthouse squares. They are more than just the utilitarian seat of justice in the county. They are enduring symbols of civic pride that announce its citizens are civilized people of good taste. Author James A. Michener even devoted a section of his book Texas to the golden age of courthouse building and the “courthouse and grounds as civic statement” phenomena. The imposing architecture translates the abstract ideals of democracy and the rule of law into stone and the landscaping and grounds showcase the prosperity and industry of the community, as well as its collective green thumb. At least that is the way it is in most of Texas. Somehow Austin has fallen down on the job badly when compared to the other county seats in the state. The Travis County Courthouse itself may be fine. But its symbolic front lawn, our own historic courthouse square: the City of Austin’s Wooldridge Square Park, is in dismal shape. The grass is dead. The ground is bare. The irrigation system is broken. The sidewalk is cracked and crumbling. The trees are in need of an arborist. Out-of-town litigants and their attorneys coming to the Travis County Courthouse parade past this barren landscape five days a week. One can imagine what they think. How did it come to this? Austin is so proud of its booming downtown with its new condo and office towers. We have a nationwide reputation for natural beauty, aesthetic appreciation and a “can do” attitude. The city government daily announces its commitment to a livable inner city. Why is there this sharp disconnect when it comes to Wooldridge Park? The short answer is that Wooldridge is not unique in its neglected state. The Austin Parks and Recreation Department budget has been cut repeatedly for decades by City Councils as other priorities are deemed to be more pressing at a given moment. Volunteers’ efforts are relied on in lieu of full time park maintenance staff. Charitable donations have replaced scarce tax dollars. This is terribly sad for a park that has such an incredibly rich history. Wooldridge Park was one of the four public squares laid out in the original plan for Austin by Surveyor Edwin Waller in 1839. But, it remained an undeveloped gully used as a repository for trash until Mayor A.P. Wooldridge created Austin’s first landscaped public park there in 1909. A progressive reformer, Mayor Wooldridge believed that it was essential to residents’ health for the city to create a physically attractive setting for urban life. He was a strong proponent of beautification and wanted Wooldridge Park to be the inaugural park in a city-wide system. Wooldridge quickly became the favored site for all of Austin’s most important civic gatherings, concerts and theatricals. But perhaps most important were the numerous political events held there. In 1913 there was a series of women’s suffrage rallies at the park that included such early feminist speakers as Texas Governor Joseph Sayers’ wife, Orline. Bigger than life Austin Mayor Tom Miller (who weighed 260 lbs.) reassured nervous Austinites repeatedly from the white columned bandstand during the years of the Great Depression. Movie stars and other notables hawked war bonds from its pillared platform during World War II. In his book, Means of Ascent, Robert Caro writes about Lyndon Johnson’s kick-off speech in Wooldridge Park in his 1948 race for the United States Senate. It took place on a warm, humid May Saturday night with several thousand residents packed into the park. Congressman Johnson was suffering from a kidney stone and had been in extreme pain for days. But, LBJ reportedly rallied to spring from his car, part the crowd of well wishers and bound onto the bandstand, throw his Stetson hat to the crowd and launch into a barn burning speech carried live on 20 radio stations state-wide. The rest is history. The current Travis County Courthouse was built in 1930 on the north side of the park following a county bond election. Since that time, the gracious park has been inextricably linked to the local bar. Lawyers, judges, jurors, law enforcement officers and county clerks have lunched on its grass and picnic tables for decades. Attorneys have counseled innumerable criminal defendants and civil litigants under its trees. Public and personal dramas, traumas and joys are daily occurrences on its sidewalks. Venerable, stately and familiar, Wooldridge Park has now witnessed the administration of justice in Austin for 78 years from across West 10th Street. In this time, it has seen the repeated expansion and renovation of the courthouse, as well as the construction of the new Justice Center and parking garage. While all these recent physical improvements to Travis County’s justice system were taking place, there has been no comparable work done on Wooldridge. Instead, it settled into a gentle decline that has recently accelerated. The coup d’ grace came with the complete collapse of the park’s ancient sprinkler system several years ago. The severe drought in the summer of 2008 finished off most of the few remaining sprigs of grass. The Austin Parks Foundation and the Downtown Austin Alliance are well aware of this problem. The Alliance commissioned a comprehensive study of the park by the University of Texas’ School of Architecture that was completed in June, 2007. It highlighted the need for a new irrigation system, new grass and new trees to provide for the transition of the aging canopy. Additional lighting and new park furniture round out the list of required improvements. The estimated cost of these renovations is calculated to be $100,000. However, public and private funding for this project has been slow to materialize. Why should we as members of the Austin Bar care about Wooldridge Park? It is our park. We are one of the primary stakeholders in Wooldridge given its proximity to our collective place of business, the Travis County Courthouse. As such, Austin lawyers should lead the way in contributing financially to the renovation of the park. This will send an important signal that someone cares about this unique park and the preservation of the portion of Austin’s history that it represents. What can we as members of the Austin Bar do to help Wooldridge Park? We can all make a donation to the Austin Parks Foundation specifically for Wooldridge. The Parks Foundation will earmark the money for its renovation and partner with other public and private interests like the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the Downtown Austin Alliance to restore the park to its former glory. Please join me in writing a generous check for “Wooldridge Park” and mailing it to the Austin Parks Foundation, 701 Brazos, Suite 170, Austin, Texas 78701. All donations are tax deductible and will be greatly appreciated. Working together we can get this old friend back on its feet and return Wooldridge Park to its former lush green, shaded glory. We can once again make the park a real “civic statement” of pride and a place where people will actually want to gather. We can make it the city and county’s gracious “front lawn” that James Michener, Mayor Wooldridge and LBJ would all recognize and feel was worthy of Austin! Historic, beloved and neglected Wooldridge Park deserves no less from us as a 100th birthday present in its centennial year of 2009! Let’s make it happen! .