Grapevine Springs Park

The park opened with a pageant. On June 15, 1937, hundreds of people gathered at Grapevine Springs for its dedication, and businesses in nearby Grapevine closed for the occasion. Descendants of pioneer families arrived in a covered wagon, many in dress of the 1840s. About forty students staged a reenactment of Sam Houston's 1843 treaty talks with area tribes, and two girls danced in costumes meant to portray Native people. The Coppell Historical Society notes that the treaty was actually signed at Bird's Fort, six miles north of Arlington, a point the marker also makes.

What the plaque says

Grapevine Springs Park The Grapeving Springs, which flow into the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, have attracted visitors for more than 2,000 years. In 1843, Republic of Texas President Sam Houston camped here during treaty negotiations with Native Americans. The treaty was later signed at Bird's Fort. In 1936, Dallas County accepted the donation of Houston's campsite as park land, and the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) built rock walls, picnic facilities, footbridges and other features. During World War II, ownership reverted to prior owners. The Baptist Foundation of Texas later obtained the land and donated it to the county in 1991. Today, the City of Coppell maintains it, and efforts to restore WPA features are ongoing. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 16 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.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 16 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 18 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.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 18 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.

More markers nearby

• Bethel Cemetery — 1.5 mi
• Missouri Colony — 2.2 mi
• Grapevine Cemetery — 4.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of Grapevine — 4.4 mi