McLain Rogers Park

McLain Rogers Park, conceived in 1934 as "City Park," is significant at the local level for its importance in the recreational and economic development of Clinton from 1934 to 1942 and for its cohesive collection of buildings and structures, and for its planned development. A unified design aesthetic in materials and style marks the various buildings and structures. The layout of the park was planned before any construction began; haphazard and wasteful utilization of space was to be avoided. The end result of the development plan is a park of unified theme, executed during the Depression, that provided not only needed recreational facilities for the citizens of Clinton, but also a living wage for the relief workers employed to carry it to fruition.

Founded in 1903 on lands previously assigned to Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, and opened to white settlement by land run in 1892, the town of Clinton was still young in 1934 when the city purchased a block of land adjacent to the city limits on the south between Tenth and Thirteenth Streets with the intention of developing a municipal park. A committee had earlier been appointed to study the issue of a park and to present a plan. All along, the thought was to use the Civil Works Administration (CWA, phased out in 1934) or Federal Emergency Relief Administration (parent organization to the CWA) to provide labor support. A swimming pool was at the top of the list of amenities desired for the new park. "Neighboring towns have swimming pools, it was pointed out. It was felt that a pool here would receive strong support."

The City of Clinton, in April 1934, purchased a parcel of land acquired directly adjacent to the joining of the two alternate routes of US Highway 66 on Tenth Street. The fifteen-acre site had previously been used at various times for rodeos, circuses, and even baseball games. The FERA would supply the workforce to complete the park. Work was to almost immediately. The initial committee and suggested that in addition to a swimming pool, other desired amenities would include softball and baseball fields and room for expansion. A few months after purchasing the land the city officially extended the city limits southward to include the property.
The future park site was first examined by professional engineers to determine the best use of the topography in relation to the desired amenities. City officials called on outside help to create a plan that would maximize the recreational use of the land. "A park expert from Oklahoma City will be here soon, perhaps this week, to survey the site and make recommendations as to how it should be laid out," noted the Clinton Daily News on April 11, 1934. The City of Clinton had just changed its governmental format, adopting a commission system. The new commissioners wanted this first project done right, desiring a "park laid out scientifically" allowing for phased construction as FERA funding and labor became available."

As it built the park, the city drew heavily on the newly available resources of the federal government. Although much of the construction in the park was done under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, the WPA was not created until 1935. In the first several months of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, Congress approved an omnibus, temporary agency-the Federal Emergency Relief Administration-charged with the responsibility of helping the nation's cities and states address the problem of unemployment through work programs at the same time that they improved the public infrastructure. This was augmented by the creation of the Civil Works Administration in November 1933. Clinton's city leaders drew upon each of these agencies to build the park: the FERA, the CWA, and subsequently the WPA. Between 1933, when the federal relief programs were launched, and 1941, when the last WPA building was constructed in what was known commonly as the City Park, the city and the federal government, under a proportional matching funds arrangement, creating a recreational park over an area of around twelve acres that included a variety of public facilities. In fact, the city creatively and impressively managed to secure one project after another during these years and shifted resources adroitly from one project to another, adding to previously approved projects, and developing plans for additional facilities.
The progress of the construction of the park is sometimes difficult to follow given the multiple projects and the uneven reporting of that work in the documentary record. But it is clear that by the summer of 1934, some of the work had begun. The first sign may have been the issuance of an order for two cars of rock to be delivered from the state reformatory at Granite in the spring of 1934. Work on the pool started in June, with 25 FERA laborers beginning work on a pool that was to measure 60' x 150', located on the north edge of the park. In July 1934, the local newspaper reported that the Federal Emergency Relief Administration had approved additional funds for the construction of a bathhouse at the city park, "for the new swimming pool being built here." The bathhouse was to be constructed of brick. The concrete footings for the pool were to be poured the next day." Within a month the city announced that "completion of the swimming pool in the city park here will likely be followed by construction of a wading pool and two tennis courts." (Two days later the city limits were extended south to include the park.) This was an ambitious program that included also the installation of floodlights at the pool and tennis courts. The newspaper reported that "the visualized park promises to be an outstanding recreation place, and is expected to prove quite popular. Facilities will be available for summer playground activities, making a more comprehensive program possible next summer." Soon the city modified an additional project so that when bids were let for future work at the park the expansion would include a ladies' restroom, a feature evidently not included previously."

With the creation of the Works Progress Administration in May 1935, the park began to take a more systematic shape, and in August 1935 E. M. Rich was appointed by the city council to develop "plans and specifications for our WPA Park Project" and to be appointed as the engineer or superintendent for the work. Work continued on the park and in the summer of 1936 the city estimated that three-fourths of the park plan was complete. Some parts of the original proposal had, however, been removed and the city in 1936 added them back into new proposals to secure additional funding. One of the more substantial parts was the addition to the bathhouse; plus, the city wanted to oil and gravel the drive through the park. In a movement that was initiated outside city hall, baseball supporters circulated a petition to include the construction of a grandstand for the baseball stadium; dugouts for the teams and a diamond had already been completed. At the same time, the local newspaper revealed an important dimension of the ongoing work when it noted in 1936 that "Clinton Park, the city's outstanding improvement under the various work relief actions, has been in progress for almost three years. The swimming pool, concrete tennis courts, croquet courts, baseball diamond, amphitheater, and other improvements have been approved under the old CWA [Civil Works Administration], the FERA, and the WPA...

And the development continued. In July 1936 the band shell-the quarter dome acoustical feature on the stage at the amphitheater-was nearing completion too. While the amphitheater was usable, and in fact appears to have been put to official use by groups who preferred not to wait, its finishing touches remained, and a grand celebration was scheduled for late August or September in a ceremony that would constitute a dedication of the park. The Clinton Chamber of Commerce, moreover, considered a proposal to plant between two hundred and five hundred trees in the park. Whether or not this became part of the WPA project or was performed independent of the WPA, or even independent of the city, is not clear. Moreover, once the season was over and the swimming pool was closed, work began on the construction of the annex to the bathhouse. One additional aspect of this park construction, which suggests something of importance to the community and the size of the effort was that when the season closed in 1936, the staff at the park was cut back to only four-a number that suggests that the seasonal employment had been quite substantial. Plus, the city set a salary for a full-time park superintendent in 1936, and one of the purposes of the bathhouse annex was to provide a residence for the superintendent. In December 1936 the city officially accepted the bleachers that had been constructed under a WPA project in the park.

All the while, of course, traffic on Route 66 continued to increase and flowed past what was still known as the City Park. In response to that increase in traffic, in 1941 the Oklahoma Highway Patrol increased its own activities. The last WPA project in the park contributed to this effort. Directly south of the main entrance gates, a new building was constructed in 1941 drawing upon WPA funds. This building housed the regional headquarters for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Situated directly on Route 66, it had immediate access to probably the most important highway in this region. That same year, because of the growing traffic on the nationally important highway, traffic in Clinton was divided along the two alternate routes so that the westbound traffic followed Choctaw to Tenth and then south, but the eastbound traffic turned onto the alternate route that, coming from the south, followed Opal to Fourth and then to Choctaw. The Y where the traffic divided, of course, was exactly opposite the park entrance, and exactly opposite the new Highway Patrol Building. (At an unknown date, moreover, a Route 66 tourist court was located immediately north of the park, exactly, in fact, in the location where the new swimming pool was built in 1987.)

At some point in the period of historic significance not yet identified, the park was renamed from the informal "City Park" to honor the mayor of the city during much of the 1930s when the park was developed: Dr. McLain Rogers.