Paul Richards Park

The man the park is named for grew up within walking distance of Jungle Park, the Handbook of Texas says. Paul Richards, born in Waxahachie in 1908, was seven when the Detroit Tigers first trained there. At Waxahachie High School he played shortstop, third base and pitcher, throwing with either arm, as the team won sixty-five straight games and nine state championships in a row from 1919 to 1927. He caught in the major leagues, played for the Tigers team that won the 1945 World Series, and managed the White Sox and Orioles, earning a name as a teacher.

What the plaque says

Paul Richards Park This ballpark has hosted athletic events since the early 20th century. By 1914, local officials began planning for a field to attract a major league baseball team to train in Waxahachie. After various team representatives visited in 1915, local businessmen formed the Waxachie Ball Park Association to raise funds. The Detroit Tigers decided to train here in 1916 if facilities were satisfactory. Builders soon completed the field, known as Jungle Park. It included a grandstand and bleachers, and its field measured 360 feet down both foul lines and 412 feet from home plate to the center field fence. The Tigers trained here in 1916 and 1917, and the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds, as well as the Kansas City Blues of the American Association, followed in subsequent seasons. The Reds won the World Series the year they trained here (1919). The diamond also served as an athletic field for Waxahachie High School. In 1922, when the Chamber of Commerce began managing the property, a flood damaged the site. Although the grandstand was dismantled and rebuilt at the high school campus in 1923, Jungle Park continued to be used by teams, including one organized by the Woodmen of the World; for a time the field was also known as Woodman Park. During World War II, it fell into disrepair until Waxahachie native Paul R. Richards, a major league player and manager, again stirred local interest for baseball. Renamed Paul Richards Park, the field reopened in 1946 with lights for night games and a terrace system to prevent flooding. In following years, many local teams and organizations have used the field, which the school district purchased in 1965. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 0.5 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 18 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 31 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.

More markers nearby

• N. P. Sims Library and Lyceum — 0.2 mi
• Site of a Confederate Powder Mill — 0.5 mi
• Central Presbyterian Church — 0.6 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Waxahachie — 0.7 mi