Memorial Park, Houston

From 1917 to 1923, the land where the park currently exists was the site of Camp Logan, a U.S. Army training camp named after Illinois U.S. Senator and Civil War General John A. Logan. During World War I, the training camp was located on the far west boundaries of Houston. After the war in early 1924, Will and Mike Hogg, purchased of former Camp Logan land and sold the area to the city at cost. In May 1924, the City of Houston took ownership of the land to be used as a "memorial" park, dedicated to the memory of soldiers who lost their lives in the war. The park is adjacent to the Camp Logan, Crestwood, and Rice Military neighborhoods. On April 25, 2018, philanthropists Rich and Nancy Kinder through their foundation, the Kinder Foundation, pledged $70 million to the Memorial Park Conservancy to accelerate redevelopment and restoration work. ==Facilities==

The park includes the 18-hole Memorial Park Golf Course, Texas's top-rated municipal golf course. Formerly the site of a nine-hole course launched in 1912, it was completely redesigned by John Bredemus and opened in 1936. The course rating is 75.0 with a slope rating of 130 from its back tees. Memorial Park hosted the Houston Open on the PGA Tour fourteen times and was renovated in 1995 at the cost of . The course hosted the tournament again in the 2021 season (October 2020). The ashes of tour professional Dave Marr were spread over the course, as it was where the winner of the 1965 PGA Championship learned to play the game. The park also has facilities for tennis, softball, swimming, track, croquet, volleyball, skating, cycling, and a running course. The softball fields are the home venue for the Texas Southern Tigers softball team. Very popular with Houston joggers, the running course is the Seymour Lieberman Exercise Trail, a 3-mile crushed granite pathway that sees almost 3 million visits annually. The trail layout has seen a number of changes since the late-2010s. On the south side of Memorial Drive are the Bayou Wilds which are miles of multi-use trails through the woods of varying difficulty. These trails include: Purple Trail, Blue Trail, Orange Trail, Yellow Trail, Aqua Trail, Red Trail, Green Trail, and the unmarked expert "Rollercoaster Trails" south of Aqua adjacent to the Buffalo Bayou. The Picnic Lane loop is used heavily by road cyclists. The Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Prairie was completed in 2022 on the former grounds of the Picnic Lane ballfields and former parking lot which connected North and South Picnic Lane. The Cullen Timing Track opened in 2023 and is located on the former grounds of the rugby pitch. The Houston Arboretum and Nature Center, an arboretum and botanical garden, sits on within the park. The Nature Center building was constructed in 1967. Becks Prime has a location on the grounds of the Memorial Park golf course. The restaurant is within the clubhouse, overlooking the golf course. For a few years, there was also a Smoothie King. ==See also==