Flag Pole Hill Park

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Flag Pole Hill Park, up in Dallas County. Now, before there was a park, before there was a lake, before there was a flag pole on any hill, there was a man named Samuel Churchwell Goforth. Everybody called him Church.

And Church Goforth, it turns out, is the reason this particular piece of Dallas even has a story worth telling. Church was born in 1870, and when he was six years old, his family made the move from Franklin County, Tennessee, out to the Garland area. That was 1876.

Texas got him young, and Texas kept him. By 1888, Church and his family were living right here on this land, settled in along White Rock Creek, and they'd stay put until 1911. The family homestead sat on what is now the pavilion site, which gives you a funny little shiver if you're standing there eating a sandwich and you think about it.

In 1889, Church married Alice Gault, who had been born in 1865. And here is where the story picks up some color. Church had just completed his first large cattle shipment, and the money he earned from that venture is what he used to purchase acreage along White Rock Creek, including this very site.

He wasn't just passing through. He was planting roots in the fertile bottom lands, and the Goforth family became prominent cotton farmers, working that rich soil that would later, in a manner of speaking, disappear beneath the surface of White Rock Lake. Now, 1909 is the year things changed on Church Goforth's land.

The city of Dallas came calling and purchased 464 acres from him, including this site, for the establishment of White Rock Lake Reservoir. The park you're standing in, or driving past, came out of that transaction. Dallas got its reservoir, and eventually, over time, this elevated corner of it got a name: Doran's Point Lookout, in honor of city commissioner William Doran.

For a while, the site just sat there. Left largely untouched, the marker says, right up until the 1930s. Then something came along that had a talent for building things in places that needed them.

Between 1935 and 1939, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC, working in partnership with the city of Dallas, got to work. They constructed a picnic pavilion. They built the Doran Combination Building.

And they put up an overlook dominated by a flag pole. That flag pole, standing up on the highest point around, is what gave this place the name it carries today: Flag Pole Hill Park. The hill kept busy after that.

From 1941 to 1971, radio station WRR broadcast from a transmitter right up on that hill. Thirty years of signal going out across Dallas from the same high ground where Church Goforth once ran cattle and grew cotton. And the Goforth family, for their part, never quite let go of the place.

Since the 1930s, they have continued to gather at this site for reunions. The land Church bought with cattle money, the land the city of Dallas turned into a reservoir park, became a place where his people kept coming back. They weren't alone, of course.

The park has drawn concerts and protests, parties and reunions, and on those rare Dallas mornings when enough snow actually falls to make a hill worthwhile, it has drawn sleds. Alice Goforth, born 1865, died 1938. Church Goforth, born 1870, died 1961.

The park they never quite left is still standing, still serving as a community gathering place within the larger White Rock Lake park system. A piece of natural habitat, the marker says, in an urban setting. A cattle man's land.

A city's reservoir. A CCC crew's best work. And a flag pole on a hill that decided the whole thing needed a name.

That's Flag Pole Hill.

What the marker says

Samuel Churchwell Goforth (1870-1961), better known as Church Goforth, once owned this land and lived on the site with his family from 1888 to 1911. The family homestead was located on the existing pavilion site. When he was six years old, Goforth moved to the Garland area in 1876 from Franklin County, Tennessee. In 1889, church married Alice Gault (1865-1938) and used money he earned from his first large cattle shipment to purchase acreage along White Rock Creek, including this site. Church and his family became prominent cotton farmers, growing in the fertile "bottom lands" that later became White Rock Lake. Flag Pole Hill Park was created from 464 acres purchased by the city of Dallas in 1909 from Church Goforth for the establishment of White Rock Lake Reservoir. This site, originally known as Doran's Point Lookout in honor of city commissioner William Doran, was left largely untouched until the 1930s. Between 1935 and 1939, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), in partnership with the city of Dallas, constructed a picnic pavilion, the Doran Combination Building, and an overlook dominated by a flag pole, thus naming the site flag pole hill park. From 1941 to 1971, radio station WRR broadcast from a transmitter on the hill. Since the 1930s, the Goforth family continued to gather at the site for reunions, and the park has served as a community gathering place for concerts, protests, parties, reunions, and sledding on the occasional snow days in Dallas. The park provides a unique natural habitat in an urban setting of the larger white rock lake park system. (2017)