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Houston left his mark at Grapevine Springs Park
Coppell: New sign to commemorate campground
08:27 AM CDT on Sunday, October 9, 2005
By JACKIE LARSON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Years of effort to honor the storied past of Grapevine Springs Park will be rewarded this week.
The Coppell Historical Society and the city of Coppell will hold dedication ceremonies for the new
Texas Historical Commission Historical Marker at Grapevine Springs Park, located south of Bethel
Road and east of Coppell Road.
It will be the first such marker on a landmark owned by the city.
Historical Society president Melinda Thomas said people referred to the park as Sam Houston's
campground.
"People said it was always known that he camped there at one point when he was negotiating with
Indians," she said.
But when the historical society couldn't verify Houston's visit, members sought a marker to
commemorate improvements done by the Works Progress Administration.
"In the process, we found documentation from a joumal of someone who traveled in his party that he
actually camped there," Ms. Thomas said.
Historian Jim Dunkley of the Irving Heritage Society found the journal of frontiersman Jesse W.
Parkinson that was owned by the Dallas Historical Society.
Mr. Parkinson traveled with Houston's party. His memoirs of the trip included a description of an
encampment at Grapevine Springs in 1843.
"We turned offto the right and soon reached the camp, where we spent some five or six days rather
monotonous, only relieved by finding a bee tree or killing our beeves, and speculation on the delay of
the Indians in coming to the Treaty, which excessively annoyed Sam Houston, who swore vengeance
against his commissioners, imagining the delay caused by them, and he finally determined to return to
Washington by way of the falls of the Brazos, and I should have been glad to have changed my return
route, but my mustang was not yet sufficiently recovered to undertake the journey. From this camp we
could just perceive the edge of the lower cross timbers where it joined the Trinity timber; considerable
quantities of wild indigo grows on the banks of the branch formed by the Springs, the water of which
has the peculiar property of becoming putrid on being kept a short time in gourds or other vessels," Mr.
Parkinson wrote.
In 1936, 12 acres known as Houston's campground were given to Dallas County to be developed as a
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park. J.D. and Corra Thweatt were paid $5 for their portion of the property, and the remainder was
donated by A.B. and Lula Miller.
As part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to put Americans back to work in the Depression,
the WPA built stonework and barbecue pits at the park in the 1930s.
According to Coppell Historical Society records, funds for maintaining the park were diverted to World
War II efforts, and the parkland reverted to the Millers and the Thweatts. In the 1950s, Dallas developer
A. Webb Roberts bought the land. He left it to the Baptist Foundation of Texas, which donated a parcel
to Dallas County, which in turn leased it to the city of Coppell for 99 years.
Grapevine Springs Park was rededicated on Nov. 18, 1994, marking the bicentennial of Sam Houston's
birth in 1793 and the sesquicentennial of his 30 days at the site in 1843.
The new historical marker commemorates events that predate the city of Coppell's official incorporation
50 years ago, said Brad Reid, the city's director of parks and recreation.
"This is the first time we have a historical marker on city property," he said. "This park is a source of
pride with the community. The historic elements create a very nice atmosphere."
Jackie Larson is an Ennis-based freelance writer.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/cgi-bin/bi/gold~rint.cgi 10/12/2005