Runge Park

Runge's park was part of a sales pitch. When he laid out Arcadia in 1890 he set aside land for a school and a public park, the post office followed in 1891, and in 1892 the White Horse Inn went up to impress prospective land buyers. The town stayed small: 168 people in 1900, and in 1907 a school with eighty-nine pupils and two teachers. Dairying became its largest industry, and the Arcadia Creamery was founded in the 1920s. The Handbook of Texas records the county fair at the park.

What the plaque says

Runge Park Galveston businessman Henry J. Runge (1859-1922), European-educated son of a German immigrant, bought the land and laid out the town of Arcadia in 1890. At that time he donated this site for use as a park. Later the Galveston County Commissioners Court named the park in his honor. First community-wide use of Runge Park was in 1938 for a dairy show that is still held yearly. Enlarged by the purchase of 10 acres in 1957, the grounds provide facilities for many recreational activities as well as the annual Galveston County Fair and Rodeo. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Space Center Houston — 12 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Galveston Island State Park — 15 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 20 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• Moody Mansion — 20 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.

More markers nearby

• Dairy Industry in the Santa Fe Area — 0.4 mi
• Original Site of First Baptist Church of Alta Loma — 2.6 mi
• Hitchcock Depot — 3.4 mi
• U. S. Naval Air Station (Blimp Base) — 4.9 mi