KIEST PARK

    Kiest Park has represented the soul and spirit of the Oak Cliff community. Kiest Park has been a vital focal point in every ethnicity in not only the Oak Cliff community but also the entire city of Dallas. In spite of up’s and downs, Kiest Park has remained and always will be a pivotal landmark in the hearts of the residents in the Oak Cliff area. 
In 1930 Edwin Kiest, a prominent newspaper executive, donated a 176-acre tract of woodland to the city for development of a park in the memory of his wife, Elizabeth Patterson Kiest. While serving as president of the Park Board in 1934, he added another 88 adjoining acres to his original gift, creating the 264-acre Kiest Park. Kiest Park is centrally located in West Oak Cliff. In the mid-1900, West Oak Cliff had a majority population of upper class Caucasians. Families for a lot of different occasions heavily used the park. 
    Kiest Park lies at 3012 South Hampton Road. Kiest Park Trail is a 2.39 mile hard surface trails that meanders along the perimeter and wooded area’s of the park. As you embark upon the trail you will first come to dozens of Soccer fields. After about one mile you will see the tennis courts. Next to the tennis courts is a state of the art handicapped accessible playground. As you round the next turn, you enter the Zone, basketball heaven, and three full outdoor basketball courts. In the center of the park are six fully fenced and lighted baseball and softball diamonds. Continuing down the path you next come to the “free” neighborhood swimming pool and kiddies playground. Continuing through the winding oak trees, you come to yet another playground area and the sand volley ball courts. As you make you way on around the trail you come the Pro tennis courts. And finally as you embark upon the last turn you reach the recreation center where the water is always ice cold and satisfying. Kiest Park is bordered by two major thoroughfares and two community streets. The two thorough fares are Hampton Road and Kiest Boulevard. These two major thoroughfares make this park very accessible to the community and visitors. The two community streets are Rugged Drive and Perryton Drive. These two streets make Kiest Park’s accessibility for the inner community very convenient. These streets are aligned with street lights and speed bumps creating light and safety barriers for the children. The two major thoroughfares and two community streets form a square creating excellent access to all that desire to visit this park that makes Oak Cliff a major attraction. Kiest Park has facilities for many regional sports and recreational activities, including softball and soccer fields, a tennis center, a walking, jogging and biking trail with exercise stations, a playground for handicapped children, a recreation center, pavilion and picnic areas. I’ve been on this earth for 22 years. I’ve had the pleasure of living at 3302 Rugged Dr for 19 years. As I step outside of my house, I am privileged to have a wonderful view of this 264-acre park. So hold on to your seats as I take you down memory lane from what was to what is and what might become. 
    Talking to a couple of my neighbor’s, they told me stories of Kiest Park in the mid 1980‘s. They could recall Kiest Park being a focal point for the African American race especially on Sunday afternoons. My parents still reminisce about arriving home from church on Sunday’s and barely being able to get to our house due to joy riders cruising around this park. The radios would be playing the latest sounds of all type of music. Families would be out on the grass with their blankets and refreshments having a picnic and flying kites. If you talk to any person about Kiest Park they would say it was the hotspot and I’ve always had a front row seat. The Forth of July was always special at Kiest Park. It was a place where families could go and pop firecrackers. We all looked forwarding to finding the ideal spot to watch the huge fireworks show at night. Many radio stations would hold concerts. 
    It was in the mid 80’s, actually as far back as I can remember that Kiest park began having an effect upon my life. My first interests in sports are all related to Kiest Park. I used to sit on my front porch and watch the kids playing football and soccer in the fall thru mid winter, playing basketball, baseball and practicing for track in the spring and playing tennis in the summer. One of my first memories of Kiest Park was around the age of three. I remember waking my parents up and telling them to take me to the park so I could play soccer. I remember seeing kids my age with uniforms, running up and down the fields kicking a round ball. There were kids of all ages and races playing together on soccer teams. The next fall, I was finally old enough to play soccer. My soccer career began at Kiest Park at the age of four, where I played for the next 15 years. The last game I played in was at the age of nineteen, ironically was played at Kiest Park. I also began playing little league football that same fall at Kiest Park. My parents soon realized that soccer and football created a scheduling conflict and demanded that I choose between the two. 
    As the seasons changed from fall to winter to spring, so did sports. Now as I looked out across the way I could see nothing but pick-ups games on the various basketball courts. I remember telling my dad I wanted to play basketball. So my dad and I formed a neighborhood Kiest park basketball team called the Oak Cliff Lions. Many of the same kids I played soccer with, also played on the basketball team. There were three courts at Kiest Park. One court was known as Top Gun, It was the court was the best of the best played. The second court was for the intermediate players, the no-names. The third court was for the 
    Rec-players. Another big sport was BBI baseball. I played BBI baseball ball at Kiest Park for ten years Kiest Park is also home to the only predominately Black Tennis Club. It was here that I first leaned to play and love tennis. 
Kiest Park was a second home to me and for everyone in Oak Cliff. It provided a place for employment. Kiest Park brought me my first job at the age of twelve. I worked Friday thru Saturday’s at Kiest Park as a soccer referee. Then when the summer hit I went to camp or worked at cap at the recreation center. Kiest Park has did so many things for the neighborhood of Oak Cliff. You must come and visit to see how magically it really is. Everything around you shapes you into the person you are today. Kiest Park taught me most of the stuff I know how to do and it also brought me most of my friends that I have today. 
    As with life, nothing stays the same. Kiest Park too has changed. It is now mostly visited and occupied by Hispanics. The once green soccer fields are now fields of dust. The Saturday mornings no longer glisten with children of all races playing soccer. Most of the games have now been moved to a nearby community college. The BBI baseball has now been replaced with adult softball leagues. The swimming pool is covered with algae and never opens. Due to the increase of crime, there is now limited access and you can no longer drive around the inner circle of the park. The basketball courts are still in good shape, but the premier players no longer frequent them. It wasn’t as safe as it used to be. In the paper I read about a probation officer head being found at Kiest Park. They never found the body. It used to be alright to be at the park late at night. Now when you run you’re afraid you might get jumped. Today in time nothing is really safe anymore. You can compare Kiest Park to almost everything in life. When you use anything as much as the people have used Kiest Park it will begin to deteriate. One it starts to deteriate you won’t have as many people still going to the park as you used to. 
    Even though Kiest Park has went from the backbone of this neighborhood to just a landmark, there is a lot that people are doing to bring it back to that magically place. A neighbor of mine who is a developer told me a lot more that is going on with Kiest Park. A team of developers has created a new master plan for Kiest Park. "Kiest Park is large enough to comfortably offer areas for community gathering, individual recreation, youth sports as well as large-scale team athletic events," says Neeley, one of the developers. High on the list of projects for Kiest's redevelopment is a multi-field softball complex in the central area. "Our goal is to preserve Kiest Park's beauty and historic structures while developing the open interior acreage into national-class ball fields as an economic development stimulator," says Neeley. "Softball has become an extremely popular sport in the United States in recent years for men and women of all ages. We want to put Oak Cliff back in the competitive market for these tournaments." 
    However, while the plan calls for state-of-the-art recreational amenities, it also incorporates the park's existing historic elements, including pavilions built of stone, wood, brick and cream-colored stucco. The master plan envisions many of the new structures reflecting the same rich materials and textures that capture the existing architectural style and character of the 1930s park era.
    "Our design approach is to blend the old and new," says Neeley. "At Kiest Park we don't have to create the sense of history and beauty. It's already there. So, we're working within the context of the park's features to accentuate the natural beauty and bring the rich architectural character of the existing facilities to life and blend them with the new ones." A couple of years ago they shut off the soccer field for two years so the grass could go back. There were still Hispanics playing anyways so they had to build a fence around the fields to keep everyone out. 
In spite of up’s and downs, Kiest Park as you can see is still a pivotal landmark in the hearts of the residents in the Oak Cliff area. Friends that I’ve met at this park still met once a year for a barbeque. The kids that grew up at this park play for men, women, and coed soccer leagues that play at the park. The men and women play in softball leagues now. Kiest Park is a place where my girlfriend and me met. It’s a place when there’s nothing to do we go over and have a picnic. The neighborhood of Oak Cliff wouldn’t be the attraction it is without Kiest Park.