By Jerry Flook, Garland Historian
Published in the Garland-Rowlett Messenger, May 2012
The City Council recently adopted a new comprehensive plan for Garland. This so-called “Evision Garland” plan identifies general goals and suggests priorities for future urban development. Garland is also currently finishing plans for the “redevelopment” of downtown. Both plans have prompted public controversy, but “Envision Garland” because of its conceptual, flexible and amendable as circumstances demand. The “Downtown Redevelopment Plan,” on the other hand, has presumably progressed beyond the flexible stage. local historic preservationists are now crossing their fingers pending the City’s unveiling of the adopted plan since several of the plan options call for demolition of the 106 year-old buildings (currently occupied by Garland Civic Theater) making up the east side of the Square.
It is interesting to note that, historically speaking, urban planning is not a new concept to Garland, its first such plan being produced in 1937 by the Garland Chamber of Commerce and the Kessler Plan Association of Dallas. (Dallas’ first comprehensive plan was drawn up by George E. Kessler in 1911 in the wake of the cataclysmic Flood of 1908). The Garland News of 2 April 1937 reported that the local Chamber of Commerce and the Kessler Association of Dallas had produced the plan for Garland. It was drawn up in only one week by Kessler Association secretary John E. Surratt and lacked the graphic design detail of the Dallas plan. Despite the fact that it offered many useful suggestions for improving Garland, it apparently quickly found its place on a dusty shelf.
Points included in Garland’s Kessler Plan of 1937:
- Garland must work to keep the highways 1 and 78. [Highway 1 was also known as the Bankhead Highway. “Keeping the highways” meant preventing the state from transfering the names and state maintenance to other routes.]
- Garland needs paved farm-to-market road service to every farm. [In 1937 argirculture, especially cotton farming, was the base of the local economy]
- Graveled streets should be replaced with hard surface paving. But first the drainage must be engineered. The county should provide the service of the engineers. Paving is needed around the Negro school. [At that time the school was three frame buildings located on the block bounded by Austin, Fourth, and Fifth streets and the Katy railroad.]
- More space should be left between curbs and sidewalks in new developments for street trees. Streets would have to be narrower to provide more tree space. The town should observe a tree planting day annually. A grove of trees should be planted in the center of the Square. [Beautification of the Square has long been an issue! This recommendation was finally implemented some 40 years later.]
- Land bounded by 4th St., the Sana Fe RR and the Katy RR should be developed into a park. [Site now occupied by the Arts Center parking lot.]
- Land bounded by 14th St., Wilson St., the Katy RR, and Duck Creek should be a park. [Tract now bounded approximately by Wilson St., the old Katy RR, the creek, and S. Garland Ave. Central Park did not exist at that time.]
- Property along Duck Creek between the Katy RR and the Santa Fe RR should be developed as a parkway similar to that on Turtle Creek in Highland Park. [This long strip on both sides of the creek would have run from the present DART trestle at State St. to the old Santa Fe trestle on the east side of Central Park.] This would provide encouragement for development of a district of fine homes.
- The creek flowing east from Garland parallel with Hwy 1 should be similarly developed after elimination of the sewage disposal plant. [This creek runs through Lou Huff Park on the north side of East Ave B. The city dump and disposal plant were once located there.]
- Wealthy citizens should be encouraged to donate land for parks and other improvements. [Unfortunately, Garland has always been in short supply of major philanthropists.]
- Garland needs a planning & zoning committee and the city should be zoned. It also needs a comprehensive plan. [In November 1941 Garland contracted with its first urban planner to draw a comprehensive plan and a zoning map.]
- All public property should be professionally landscaped.
- Lot size minimum should be increased from 50 feet to 70 or 90 feet. Lots along Duck Creek should be estate (acreage) size.
- Care of cemeteries should be better. A year-round salaried caretaker should be employed for K of P and Masonic cemeteries. The state highway department should gravel the slopes of Hwy 1 in front fo the cemetery for parking. The white people should give practical encoragement to the Negroes in the care of the Negro cemetery. [The location of this Negro Cemetery is no longer known!]
- More recreational should be provided for young people — parks, organized recreation, a gymnasium [It was not until 1948 that Garland obtained land for its first municipal park, Central Park.
- The City should collect garbage more than once every three months. Every residence should have a sewer collection.
- Rowlett Creek and Muddy Creek watersheds should be added to the Soil Conservation program now applied only to Duck Creek (now some 13,000 acres participating).
- An agricultural program should be established, including
- a) Agricultural education
- b) Better farm houses
- c) Greater self-sufficiency – vegetables, fruits, apiaries, poultry, etc.
- d) Raising produce marketable in Dallas
- e) Proper soil management
- f) Improvement of strains of livestock, seeds, etc.
- g) Pasture management
- h) Building farm ponds
- i) Rural electricity and telephones [Some rural homes in what is now Garland did not get electricty until after WWII]
- j) Encorgament of home ownership
- k) Adequate farm financing
- l) Conservation of natural resources
- The City should provide more public parking downtown. Alleys could be paved and merchants could open their rear entries, or the City could provide parking lots on one or two blocks.
- Downtown merchants should work out a program to modernize the front sof their buildings. [Some did; some didn’t; but “modernization” such as that performed on the Square in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s often created architechtural monstrosities and did little to stimulate business.]
Editor: Kessler’s plan was written in the vernacular of that era. It seems ironic that there were parking problems in our down town area even then.
Editorial Comment-
The City of Garland recently announced the imminent beginning of the next phase of the Downtown Redevelopment Plan. Anyone who has seen the current state of Garland’s Historic Square is aware of the need for revitalization. Much of what was originally retail space whent he Square was built in the first decade of the last sentry is now repurposed for office use or storage, or is now vancant. The sunken pool in the center of the plaza is wasted space and the entire row of historic buildings on the east side of the Square is underutilized space and its aluminum canopy is unapplealing and inappropriate, to say the least. With one or two exceptions retail on the Square has died. In fact, its demise began long ago when the new interstate highways siphoned off the traffic over the Bankhead Highway (now Main St.) and shopping malls became the rage. The sunken pool and the aluminum canopies are remnants of misguided efforts to “modernize” the Square, with hopes of making it competitive. Obviously that approach of remaking the Historic Square into something it was not was a mistake which we are now trying to remedy. Without question the plaza of the Square needs to be redesigned, but will Garland’s leaders make the same “modernization” mistake all over again?
Many, if not most, Texas cities with historic downtown areas have chosen to revitalize them by capitalizing on their quaintness and homey charm. Robert Smith’s reconstruction of the Handley Drug Store into what is now the Generator Coffee Shop was the right idea. The new design chosen for the plaza of the Square should reflect the architectural flavor of the historic buildings surrounding it. Contrary to what seems to be the prevailing thought in the city government, it should not be an intrusion of contemporary Fifth Street Crossing architecture into an area of historic 1900s architecture. Nether should be the Square be opened up for better visibility from the Dart station, as the design consultant insists. If kept separate and distinct the historic and the contemporary can be complementary and even synergistic by their contrast. But the Historic Square and its plaza SHOULD NOT BE MADE AN EXTENSION OF THE FIFTH STREET CROSSING DEVELOPMENT. EACH SHOULD STAND ALONE and in doing so point out the appeal of the other. A recent statement by the mayor suggests that the final decision about the form ehich the plaza remodel will take has not yet been made, so it is not too late to TELL YOUR COUNCILPERSON AND THE MAYOR YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE FUTURE OF GARLAND’S HISTORIC SQUARE.
Signed,
Jerry M. Flook