The Making of Central Park in Davis: With Comparisons to the History of Other City Parks in Yolo County, presentation by Dennis Dingemans

This lecture is part of the regular monthly meeting of the Yolo County Historical Society. Refreshments will be served. Dennis is a retired UCD professor who taught urban geography and served on city commissions when the park was augmented in the 1980s and 1990s.

Central Park was a late addition to the urban fabric of Davis, as the 1868 grid plan that established Davisville neglected to set aside any land for public uses. Despite a strong Iberian tradition of laying out a plaza at or near the center of town, the four largest towns in our county each lacked either a plaza or a close-in central park. Only Esparto has a central park conceived from its 1885 beginning.

However, during the Progressive Era of the previous century large and successful parks were added to Woodland, Winters, and Davis. Parks were also prominent in the 1913 layout of West Sacramento. The Davis park was included in 1923 as part the town's first General Plan. An elaboration of the proposal was then part of an overly ambitious 1927 "City Beautiful" plan for Davis by Charles H. Cheney. The final design and implementation in 1937 with WPA funding was considerably more humble than the 1927 plan for a civic center cluster of public buildings around a park.

The Woodland and Winters "central parks" have been upgraded on several occasions but the Davis park has experience the most spectacular subsequent transformation one might imagine. The park's re-making following a referendum in the 1980s included creating a synergistic setting for the Farmer's Market and much, much more (including the Hattie Weber Museum of Davis).