Houston's Hermann Park: A Century of Community

Chapter Five: No Plan: 1952–1961

was concern for overcrowding of the zoo. As previously discussed, an expansion and major changes were made, and the new Houston Zoo opened in 1950. Museum of Natural Science The zoo expansion in 1950 coincided with the continuing need for a larger building for the Museum of Natural Science, which some wanted relocated outside of the zoo property. The museum’s initial building was constructed in 1929 and opened in 1930, allowing exhibits already owned by the Houston Museum and Scientific Society, as it had been known since 1909, to be moved from temporary locations in the Houston Public Library (now Julia Ideson Building) and the City Auditorium to the new museum building in 1930.3 As early as 1943, C. C. “Pat” Fleming (1909–1996), the Houston landscape architect and director of the Parks Department from 1943 to 1945,4 had called for an expanded zoo and a new building for the museum. Fleming proposed a ten-year improvement program for Hermann Park that was to include a lake for boat rides, a children’s zoo, a tropical garden in the zoo, and parking for four hundred cars. He noted that there was a dwindling stock of animals at the zoo.5 At the same time, the number of exhibits at the Museum of Natural Science was increasing not only with donations, but also from zoo animals that died and were stuffed or otherwise preserved as specimens for the museum.6 From its beginning the museum had a symbiotic relationship with both the zoo and Hermann Park. Museum staff used the park as a laboratory, taking schoolchildren on field trips to study plants and animals. In 1943 an extensive inventory of plants in the park was compiled by the museum. A series of confidential reports on the condition of Houston’s parks prepared for J. Robert Neal, a Houston banker and chairman of the Houston Board of Park Commissioners from 1938 to 1940, concluded that Houston’s park system was inadequate. Miller Theatre in Hermann Park was described as being in “deplorable” condition. In the summer of 1938, Neal confronted the city council and asked for an increase in the park budget. When that was denied, along with a proposal to assign golf fees from Memorial and Hermann parks to the Parks Department, Neal proposed closing the zoo and selling all the animals. In a compromise, the city council agreed to give over the golf fees for park maintenance.1 Indicating the low priority assigned to parks that occurred during the Depression, a number of proposals were made to encroach on Hermann Park for nonpark uses. These included a request by the Houston Conservatory of Music for 3 or 4 acres on Main near Palmer Chapel and 50 acres for a public school stadium on Almeda. Oscar Holcombe, mayor again in 1940, created a City Planning Department and hired Hare & Hare’s representative in Houston, Ralph S. Ellifrit (1909–1999), as director. Ellifrit and Hare & Hare successfully opposed plans to take over major sections of the park by other entities. Even after World War II, as the economy of Houston gained strength, it was not until the mid-1950s that any serious attention was paid to Hermann Park. In 1951 Mayor Holcombe, who had been an advocate for Hermann Park, made it clear that he was in favor of postponing development of parks already owned by the city, including or especially Hermann Park, in favor of expanding Houston’s park system by using city resources to purchase new parkland.2 One exception CHAPTER FIVE No Plan 1952–1961 The Museum of Natural Science, 1929, was first located in this small building on the grounds of the zoo. Courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library. Museum of Natural Science, interior, 1937, shows cases of natural specimens and the head of “Black Diamond,” a circus elephant killed by Hans Nagel in 1929 after it trampled a bystander in Corsicana. Courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library. Proposal for development of a new Natural Science Museum and art institute in Shadyside (1948, Hare & Hare). Courtesy Houston Metropolitan Research Center, Houston Public Library (RGD 26). No Plan 79 After Hare & Hare’s plan to locate a new science museum building in Shadyside was suppressed, architect Hermon Lloyd proposed a design concept locating the new museum on the Grand Basin (current site of the aquarium), where George Kessler might have put it...