Norman City Park New Deal Resources Historic District - Norman, OK - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

Norman City Park was set aside when Norman was first settled after the Land Run of 1899. It wasn't until 1893 that the park was first laid out and improved. Over the decades, the park was a popular meeting place for the citizens. Between 1935 and 1937, under the New Deal programs, several items were constructed in the southwest portion of the park. Work was performed by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Works Progress Administration with some work done by the National Youth Administration. This Historic District covers a portion of the park which contains these New Deal structures.

A beautiful native stone amphitheater was constructed in 1936/1937 by the WPA, and is still in use today. The amphitheater is a semi-circle, with three sections of twenty rows of seating. The seats are native stone benches with concrete caps. At the rear of the seating (west) a parking lot has native stone curbing, with a low wall behind the seating. From the parking area to the stage, four stone walks serve as aisles for the seating. Low stone walls border the amphitheater, with three stone steps leading to the stage.

Southeast of the amphitheater are two native stone bathhouses. They originally served as dressing rooms and showers for a wading pool, but have not been used as such since about 1984. Currently, the west bathhouse has had the windows, doors and roof removed and serves as a walled picnic area. The east bathhouse houses the parks filtration system.

Running along the south side of the park is a drainage ditch which has a concrete bottom, with stone lined walls. This was constructed by the WPA, with some of the rip-rapping done by the NYA. Two stone bridges over this ditch were also built at this time.

The park was originally named the Norman City Park, but was re-named J.A. "Abe" Andrews Park in 1956, after the man who worked for the City from 1926 and oversaw much of the work done at the park, including the WPA projects.

Street address: Jct. of Daws Street and Webster Avenue Norman, OK US County / Borough / Parish: Cleveland County Year listed: 2000 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Event Periods of significance: 1950-1974; 1925-1949 Historic function: Recreation and Culture Current function: Recreation and Culture Privately owned?: no Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/30/2019 The Snowdog visited it