Will Rogers Gardens: New Deal in the Prairie
Near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Before this land became one of Oklahoma City's most beloved green spaces, it was a dairy farm. In nineteen twelve the city purchased one hundred sixty acres here, and two decades later the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration turned it into something remarkable. Beginning in nineteen thirty-two, work crews including the CCC cleared brush and built terraces, footbridges, and curved roads, all in native red sandstone.
WPA crews added a rose arbor, amphitheater, iris gardens, and a naturalistic arboretum. The park was named for Oklahoma's own Will Rogers, the Cherokee Nation humorist and radio star who died in nineteen thirty-five. Today the arboretum honors Margaret Annis Boys.
It remains one of the most intact New Deal park landscapes in the state.
