Park board to restore Oak Lawn Park name

The Dallas park board is catching up to the neighborhood by restoring Oak Lawn Park’s original name — at least temporarily. Dallas’ parks board is planning to temporarily restore the park’s original name until its settles on a new, permanent name.
While watching the many attempts to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee and his boyfriend from the park, many observers were already calling the park by its first name. Dallas Voice began using the original name regularly earlier this summer.
The Dallas Parks Board meets Friday and will vote on the name change. The statue of Robert E. Lee that stood in the park since 1936 was removed on Sept. 14. So the choices are for the park board to restore the original name of the park, Oak Lawn Park, or they could change it to Leeless Park. Changing out the head on the statue and renaming it Brenda Lee Park just doesn’t make sense anymore.
William H. Lemmon and Oliver P. Bowser built Oak Lawn Park as an amenity for private residential development in the area in 1903. The park because so popular the city bought it in 1909 and named a couple of streets after Lemmon and Bowser. Lemmon’s son, Mark, designed the pedestal for the Lee statue that was built and placed by an affiliate of the Klan. The Lemmon pedestal still stands in Lee Park. White supremacists have begun using the pedestal as a rallying point and held an armed rally in the park on Sept. 16.