Memorial Groves Public Information Session

Memorial Park Conservancy (MPC) is pleased to invite you to the Public Information Session for the Memorial Groves project at Memorial Park. The project will recognize all who served at Camp Logan during and immediately after World War I. Memorial Groves will connect visitors to the Park’s intertwined stories of history, culture, ecology, and community, and will offer opportunities for exploration, recreation, and special events that mark significant days of remembrance and celebration.

WHERE: Emancipation Park Conservancy Cultural Center – 3018 Emancipation Avenue, Houston, TX 77004
WHEN: September 10, 2024
TIME:  6:00 – 7:30 p.m., Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

We look forward to seeing you at this Community Meeting where MPC, along with our partners at Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, will present the essential stories and narratives that will be shared at Memorial Groves. The presentation will focus on our historical and ecological research as well as emerging narratives guided by our expert and stakeholder team’s perspectives, expertise, and lived experiences.

Subsequent public meetings will be held in 2025. We very much look forward to seeing you on September 10, 2024.

Space is limited. Please register in advance.
RVSP HERE

A video recording of the information session will be published to the Memorial Park Conservancy YouTube page shortly following the event.

About Memorial Groves:

Established 100 years ago in 1924, Houston’s Memorial Park was named to honor the 70,000 soldiers who served at Camp Logan, a U.S. Army training camp during World War I (WWI). The Park’s creation was driven by a campaign from Houstonians to “remember the boys” by acquiring the site and transforming it into a public park.  Will and Mike Hogg, with minority owner Henry Stude, bought two tracts of the former Camp Logan land and sold the acreage to the City of Houston at cost. In May 1924, the City officially established Memorial Park in memory of the soldiers. Today, approximately 1,500 of the original 7,600-acre training camp comprise Memorial Park.

“Whatever may come or now be made of our Camp Logan, we never can escape the fact that once upon a time… the very heart of our nation beat within this spere.”
–   Ilona B. Benda,1923

Now, a century later, the 100-acre Memorial Groves project will fulfill the vision of Memorial Park’s founders. The future Memorial Groves will honor all who contributed to the war effort at Camp Logan, including those who trained there, such as the U.S. Army’s 370th Infantry Regiment and the Calvary, the local organizations that participated in camp life, like the YMCA, as well as those who oversaw the construction of the camp, like the 24th Infantry Regiment.

Memorial Groves is a landscape envisioned by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects as part of the 2015 Memorial Park Master Plan and is designed as a place-based, interactive experience that not only honors Houston’s World War I history but also serves everyday park users.

The location of Memorial Groves is a 100-acre area, running north to south primarily between the Union Pacific rail line and West Memorial Drive. This site was chosen because it holds the greatest number of the few archaeological remains of the Camp Logan structures within the Park: foundations of latrines, shower buildings, pipes, ditches, and drains. Despite their modest nature, they are authentic remnants of the camp and an opportunity for the public to understand and experience the scale and scope of Camp Logan’s footprint. The location is currently a quiet and underutilized area of the Park appropriate for a contemplative memorial landscape. It has remained largely unprogrammed and has been badly impacted by four years of drought that killed much of the pine forest present before 2014.

The average age of the soldiers who trained at Camp Logan was 25, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation. The conceptual design of Memorial Groves is based on the artful and abstract concept of planting rigorous lines of straight, tall trees, symbolically representing soldiers standing in formation. Visitors will be immersed in a seemingly endless grid of tall trees, forming long, cathedral-like spaces that evoke the scale of the war effort and the 70,000 soldiers who trained for war at Camp Logan.

In addition to these contemplative aspects of the Memorial Groves, visitors will be able to run or walk through Gulf Coast Native Prairie and Savanna and relive the exercise routine of soldiers in the Boot Camp workout trail. Similar to other Master Plan projects, this area will introduce new spaces in the Park where families and children can enjoy picnics and engage in interactive recreation and play.

When completed, Memorial Groves will be a unique, engaging and interactive memorial landscape that connects visitors to the diverse, complex, and untold history of Camp Logan; the role of Houston in WWI; and the lives and sacrifices of the soldiers trained there. This is why the Park is fittingly named Memorial Park.

Learn more about the Memorial Groves project.

Submitting Questions prior to Event:

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU: Designers and stakeholders involved in the Memorial Groves project are eager to hear your thoughts and inquiries. Your input is valuable and will contribute to gathering essential public feedback to help inform the project’s design.

We invite the public to submit their questions PRIOR to the September 10 Public Information Session. Representatives from Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects will answer the most frequently asked questions during the event. Please submit your questions by emailing groves@memorialparkconservancy.org. 

Please note: to maintain the session within its allotted time, questions will be submitted in advance of the meeting or via comment cards during the event. After the session, you may continue to submit any additional questions about the project to the same email, groves@memorialparkconservancy.org, and we will respond promptly. Frequently asked questions and their answers will be posted on the Memorial Park Conservancy website following the event.

Please take a moment to share your insights. Together, we can build a living tribute that resonates with the collective spirit and needs of our community.

Meeting Details:

WHO: Memorial Park Conservancy & Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
WHAT: First Public Information Session for Memorial Groves, a project of Memorial Park’s Ten-Year Plan
WHERE: Emancipation Park Conservancy Cultural Center – 3018 Emancipation Avenue, Houston, TX 77004
WHEN: September 10, 2024
TIME:  6:00 – 7:30 p.m., Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

*Refreshments will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis

Space is limited. Advance registration is highly recommended.
RVSP HERE

Free Parking:

Parallel Parking: Parallel parking spots are located in the front of the park along Emancipation Avenue, as well as behind the park along Hutchins Street. These spaces are first-come, first-served.

Traditional Parking: Traditional, head-in spaces are available right next to the baseball field along Tuam Street.

Parking Lot: Emancipation Park also has a free parking lot located on Tuam Street directly across from the baseball field. This lot contains 55 spaces, including regular, ADA, and FEV parking. Please see map for reference.

About Memorial Park’s Ten-Year Plan:

Memorial Groves is among a subset of accelerated projects of the Memorial Park Master Plan made possible by the Ten-Year Plan. The Master Plan and its accelerated Ten-Year Plan projects together promote connectivity and resiliency, restore damaged ecologies to provide higher function for the Park and city, help manage storm water, provide new cultural and recreational amenities, and tell the historical narratives of the people and the land through landscape design.

Memorial Park Conservancy is delivering the Ten-Year Plan projects with its project partners: Houston Parks and Recreation Department, Uptown Houston, and Kinder Foundation. Other completed Ten-Year Plan projects include the 100-acre Clay Family Eastern Glades (opened July 2020); the Sports Complex (opened October 2020); a one-mile segment of the Seymour Lieberman Trail that is now off of Memorial Drive and is an exciting run through the trees and over ravines (opened October 2022); the 100-acre Kinder Land Bridge and Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie (opened February 2023); and the Running Complex (opened November 2023).

Ten-Year Plan Project Partners:  Memorial Park Conservancy, Houston Parks & Recreation Department, Uptown Houston and Kinder Foundation
Master Plan Design and Project Landscape Architect: Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects
Architect: Moody Nolan
General Contractor: Tellepsen