City Lake Park

The park has outgrown its first plan. In 1947 the proposal called for six acres with a lake, community building, picnic areas and pool, on land given by N. E. Shands and brothers Anson and Raymond Holley, and the city describes it as the first property in Mesquite set aside for recreation. It grew through the 1950s and 1960s, then gained an acre in 2020 when Mesquite built its veterans memorial there. In 2021 the Texas Recreation and Park Society named it a Lone Star Legacy Park, one of eight honored that year.

What the plaque says

City Lake Park A post-World War II population boom transformed the metroplex, including Mesquite, with a population then numbering about 1,600. In 1947, as new roads and subdivisions connected previously rural communities, the city's first park was developed. Local bank president N.E. Shands, along with Anson Holley and Raymond Holley, donated 12.5 acres to create a recreational and gathering place near downtown. Plans called for a six-acre lake, community building, picnic areas, and a swimming pool. Dallas county agreed to furnish the labor and equipment to excavate the lake basin. In October 1947, the city of Mesquite appointed its first park board to oversee the project. Mayor Sam Rutherford moved a surplus building from Camp Maxey (near Paris, Texas) for the community building, and citizens donated plumbing, electrical and other work to make it ready for use. The community building later evolved into Lakeside Activity Center, a popular rental facility for the city. The lake provided recreational opportunities and flood control for nearby neighborhoods. The pool was upgraded over the years and has become the city's only aquatics center. Mesquite Cemetery, which dates from 1878, abuts the park. Other amenities, including a baseball field and playgrounds, have grown along with the city in the decades since the park's establishment. Seventy years after the creation of City Lake Park, the city of Mesquite parks system consisted of 76 sites, including athletic fields, picnic areas, and connections to a trail system. City Lake Park remains a much-loved and used facility in the heart of the community. (2018)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fair Park — 9.5 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 9.7 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 11 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 12 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.

More markers nearby

• City of Mesquite — 0.2 mi
• Sam Bass Train Robbery — 0.2 mi
• First Methodist Church of Mesquite — 0.3 mi
• CCC Company 850 — 0.4 mi