How many acres is hermann park

The foot suspension bridge, built by TxDOT Texas Department of Transportation in partnership with the Houston Parks and Recreation Department and Hermann Park Conservancy, connects the banks of Brays Bayou in the Bayou Parkland area, linking pedestrians and cyclists in the surrounding neighborhoods to trails and public spaces found in Hermann Park.

The lush greenery benefits from Hermann Park's proximity to Brays Bayou, an important waterway. Houston planners are working to use Hermann Park as an important piece of the Bayou Greenways Initiative to help mitigate the impact of flooding in the region.

Hermann Park is the work of some of the great park planners and landscape architects of the past century working with highly motivated, civic-minded citizens. Hermann donated acres of land for the creation of a park. A year later, in , Houston Mayor Ben Campbell encouraged the city to add to the acreage by purchasing an additional acres. The entrance to the park is at the intersection of Main St. A statue of General Sam Houston points the way into the park and its many amenities.

Community Center. After 50 years making memories for countless Houstonians, the Hermann Park train received an update. Phase I, completed in March of , expanded the train route to 1. The first public rides began March 8. Construction was completed in March Baldwin Rice, a progressive reformer, a Board of Park Commissioners was formed to advise the mayor and city commissioners on the acquisition, maintenance and development of park property.

Hermann, a real estate investor and industrialist; and William A. Wilson, a real estate developer. They in turn, in February , retained Arthur Colemen Comey, a landscape architect from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to come to Houston to analyze local conditions and make recommendations for the sort of park and parkway system which ought to be developed. One of Comey's specific recommendations was that a major park be acquired within what he described as the inner park system, serving Houston and its area of immediately projected expansion.

Called Pines Park in his report, this was indicated as a tract along Brays Bayou, across Main Street Road from the Rice Institute campus, laid out by the Boston architects Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson on a acre site in and opened in The location of Pines Park probably was not accidental, for most of the property shown in Comey's diagram was owned by George H.

Maxcey's Plan Never Implemented In May Hermann announced publicly his intention of deeding to the City of Houston acres of this property for a municipal park.

The transfer was made in June; after Hermann's death in October , several more acres were bequeathed to the City of Houston for the George H. Hermann Park. John W. Maxcey, the city engineer, produced the initial plan for developing this acreage, which extended from Almeda Road on the east to a line along the projected route of LaBranch Street on the west, between what are now Hermann Drive on the north and Holcombe Boulevard on the south.

Maxcey, who in had laid out Sam Houston Park, the city's first public park, worked closely with Hermann on the proposed design for Hermann Park. According to Maxcey's plan drawing, Brays Bayou was to be rechanneled extensively to create a series of wooded island to either side of the existing channel. A curvilinear network of roads defined a series of oval-shaped meadows, in the center of the park. Most of the open space was devoted to a golf course. The main entrance was to be on the west side of the park.

A landscaped boulevard perpendicular to Main Street, opposite entrance two to the Rice campus, gave access to the park. Maxcey's plan was never implemented. From the five block deep strip of property that Hermann had owned between his donated park site and Main Street, the trustees of the Hermann Estate reserved only a acre rectangular tract across from the entrance three to the Rice campus.

This was the site Hermann had selected for a charity hospital, which he endowed with his entire estate. Kessler's Plan Rather than direct Maxcey to produce a revised plan, the Board of Park Commissioners retained their own consultant, the celebrated St. Louis landscape architect and planner, George E. At the instigation of the oilcan Joseph Stephen Cullinan, Kessler was appointed consulting landscape architect to the board in early His proposal for Hermann Park seem to have been presented the next year.

In the plan he devised for Hermann Park, Kessler relied upon the diagonal geometry resulting from the intersection of the newly extended Montrose Boulevard with the newly widened and paved Main "Boulevard. Where the two boulevards crossed, a landscaped elliptical island, the Sunken Garden, was located. Continuing southward into the park, Montrose Boulevard provide the axis around which different features were organized.

In Kessler's only surviving drawing, a plan for the entrance quadrant dated , the roadway broke into a series of circular drives around a traffic circle inscribed with a monument. This circle occurred where the axis of Montrose Boulevard was intersected by a line of vision projected along the principal axis of the Rice Institute campus.

The roadway divided around the circle to encompass a shallow, rectangular reflecting pool, flanked by walks and a music pavilion and its attendant seating area. Beyond these lay an irregularly configured lake called the Grand Basin, which pergolas, boat landings and a large, arcaded shelter house stationed along its shores. A city map of diagrammatically shows that must have been Kessler's general scheme of development.

A central, oval athletic field was bracketed by two other oval fields in a three lobe configuration. The western lobe contained playground and picnic facilities and the eastern lobe contained a swimming pool and bath house. Southeast of this three-lobed group of open space, encompassed in an oval, were the golf links. That Kessler's proposal was more sophisticated than Maxcey's is not surprising.

Kessler demonstrated a pronounced facility for reconciling the requirements of ceremoniousness and informality in his design. The principal axis marked the ceremonial space of the park. The north and south embankments of the Grand Basin were part of the space of the axis. But the east and west shores which were not were eroded by canals and lagoons that broke down the sense of strict boundary and let to small scale, shaded dells. The extent of the improvements which were actually undertaken during and is hard to ascertain, although the drives apparently were laid out, the rectangular reflecting basin was built and the Shelter house in the southwest quadrant of the park was constructed.

Along Main boulevard double rows of evergreen live oaks were planted. Instruments in the realization of these features of the Kessler plan were two Houstonians; Clarence L. Brock, general superintendent of city parks since , and Herbert A. Kipp, who had been appointed consulting engineer to the board of Park Commissioners in One was the development of a residential enclave called Shadyside by J.

In February Cullinan purchased from the Hermann Estate nearly 37 acres along Main Street, north of the campus and west of the park, and with the aid of Kessler and Kipp proceeded to turn it into a residential neighborhood of small estates. At the time George Hermann died, he had promised representatives of the Houston Art League to donate property for a museum that the league hoped to build.

In August the league acquired the triangular-shaped, three-acre lot between Main and Montrose, opposite the Sunken Garden, a joint gift of the Hermann Estate and Mr. War and the Lack of Money Stops Progress Until The eruption of war in April and the exhaustion by August of a bond issue voted in brought all park acquisition and improvement projects in Houston to a halt. Following the Armistice, the Progressive spirit of civic action that had been so active during the 's seemed to falter.

Hermann Park Conservancy relies on the support of generous individuals and organizations to continue its efforts to maintain and care for Hermann Park. However you wish to contribute, your financial support helps provide priceless experiences and create cherished memories for visitors today and for the years to come. McWilliams Dog Park One of the most-requested community features is in the homestretch of fundraising and we need your help to get us over the finish line. Play Your Park Memberships provide vital support for engaging programs, beautiful landscaping, and essential maintenance.

McWilliams Dog Park A dog park, one of the most requested features from the community, is in the homestretch of fundraising and we need your help! Photo by Michael Shum. Plan a Visit Located in the heart of Houston, Hermann Park welcomes an estimated six million visitors a year.