Memorial Groves Public Information Session

Memorial Park Conservancy (MPC) is pleased to invite you to the second 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.

What: Second Public Information Session for Memorial Groves, a project of Memorial Park’s Ten-Year Plan
When: Thursday, February 13, 2025
Time: 5:30 – 7:00 p.m., Doors open at 5:00 p.m.
Where: St. Theresa Catholic Church Fellowship Hall (adjacent to Memorial Park)
Address: 6622 Haskell Street, Houston, TX  77007
Parking: Free parking is available in front of St. Theresa Catholic Church and Fellowship Hall

Space is limited. Please register in advance.
RVSP HERE

NOW AVAILABLE: A video recording of the first Memorial Groves Public Information Session, held on September 10, 2024, has been published to the Memorial Park Conservancy YouTube page.

Click Here to watch!

About Memorial Groves:

Established 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 sphere.”
–   Ilona B. Benda,1923

Now, a century later, 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, like the YMCA, that participated in camp life, as well as the 24^th Infantry Regiment, who oversaw the construction of the camp.

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.

Memorial Groves is located on a narrow tract within Memorial Park running north to south primarily between the Union Pacific rail line and West Memorial Loop Drive. This site was chosen because it holds the greatest number of archaeological remains from 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, making this an appropriate area for a contemplative memorial landscape.

The conceptual design of Memorial Groves is based on the artful and abstract concept of planting rigorous lines of straight, tall trees symbolizing soldiers standing in formation and intends to evoke the vast scale of Camp Logan and the overall war effort. Visitors will be immersed in a 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 Memorial Groves, trails for visitors and regular recreational park-goers will enable people to experience a variety of native landscape ecologies while also learning about the lives and daily routines of the soldiers. 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 February 13 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 are posted on the Memorial Park Conservancy website.

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: Second Public Information Session for Memorial Groves, a project of Memorial Park’s Ten-Year Plan
WHERE: St. Theresa Catholic Church Fellowship Hall (adjacent to Memorial Park)
Address: 6622 Haskell Street, Houston, TX  77007
WHEN: Thursday, February 13, 2025
TIME: 5:30 – 7:00 p.m., Doors open at 5:00 p.m.
Parking: Free parking is available in front of St. Theresa Catholic Church and Fellowship Hall

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

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

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