Woodward Park is a 45-acre (18 ha) public park, botanical garden, and arboretum between 21st Street and 24th Street east of South Peoria Avenue and west of South Rockford Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the Midwestern United States. The park, named after the original property owner Helen Woodward, was established in 1929 after a lengthy court suit over ownership.
The park was designed to provide its visitors with experience with various horticultural subjects. It contains several specialty gardens, including spring flowers, tropical plants, cacti, the Tulsa Rose Garden, the Tulsa Garden Center, and the Tulsa Arboretum. The park is known for its azaleas, tulips, irises, dogwoods, and redbuds. The Rose Garden (established in 1935) features over 9,000 roses of over 250 varieties.
The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 11, 2014, as Woodward Park and Gardens Historic District. Its areas of significance are listed as Landscape Architecture, Architecture, and Education/Recreation.
History
The city of Tulsa, OK purchased a 45-acre (18 ha) tract of land in 1909 for $100 an acre from Herbert Woodward. This area outside the city limits, called “Perryman’s pasture,” was part of a 160-acre allotment that Helen Woodward, a mixed-blood Creek Indian, had received from the Five Civilized Tribes Indian Commission. Her mother was a full-blood Creek and belonged to the Lochapoka tribe. She was 14 years old, under the legal age, when her white father and guardian, Herbert Woodward, sold the land without her consent. Tulsa had condemned the site with the intent of creating a public park. In 1925, Helen, then known as Helen Slemp, sued Tulsa to recover ownership of the land. The suit lasted four years before the court favored the city. According to the Tulsa World, “The opinion ended one of the hardest fought land suits in the city’s history and decided a question which has been before Oklahoma courts for years. The principal question involved was the right of the city to condemn for public purposes land lying” outside the city limits.
Tulsa Rose Garden
The Tulsa Municipal Rose Garden was begun in 1935 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. It was designed to have five terraces constructed on a hillside by manual labor and horses. The terrace levels have stone walls and steps, with the walls covered by English Ivy. According to the Tulsa Garden Society, the Rose Garden contains about 5,000 rose plants representing 250 varieties. Bed Bug Exterminator Tulsa
The rose display has recently been adversely affected by rose rosette, a virus carried by wind-borne mites. The virus had killed almost two-thirds of the plants by April 2014. According to the Tulsa park horticulturist who oversees the garden, Mark Linholm, new species of roses that are more resistant to this virus will be planted in 2015. Lindholm said the garden would diversify to include entirely different plants, although it will still feature roses.
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