DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker at Loy Park tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture Grayson County in 1930. The Depression is settling in like a cold front that won't move, and county officials are reckoning with a fact that's hard to argue: sixty-five thousand, five hundred people living in this area, and not a single proper public recreation facility to show for it.
That's a lot of folks with nowhere to go on a Sunday afternoon. Three years they waited. Then, in 1933, the federal government agreed to do something about it — create a small lake on land the county would provide.
The Grayson County commissioners court moved quickly. October of 1933, they purchased a site two and a half miles southwest of Denison. And to do the building, they secured the services of the Civilian Conservation Corps — the CCC, a federal public works program that was putting idle hands to meaningful work all across the country.
Then, in early November, they arrived. Two hundred men from Wisconsin, all of them comprising CCC Company 857, rolling into Grayson County ready to work. Now that is a detail worth sitting with for a moment.
Wisconsin men. Coming down to North Texas to build something for people they'd never met. And build they did.
By 1934, Company 857 had conjured a recreation center out of raw Texas ground — a lake, a roadway, thirteen culvert bridges, six picnic units they called battleships, a baseball diamond, and a central tower of native stone that was still climbing skyward when the contract ran out. Because in April of 1934, many of those Wisconsin men went home. Six-month contract, end of the line.
Now the county needed workers, and here's where the story gets a little interesting. It was unusual — the marker's word, unusual — to employ CCC workers in their own home areas. But Grayson County had a shortfall to fill, and so forty-eight local men were enlisted to replenish the ranks of Company 857.
Home-county hands finishing what the Wisconsin crew had started. The park had been going by the name Grayson County Park, but in 1934 the commissioners court renamed it Judge Jake L. Loy State Park — and the reason the marker gives is straightforward: they were hoping the new name would help secure state assistance in completing the facility.
It was a practical calculation dressed up in an honorific. Well. The state never did get around to maintaining the place.
By 1937, the commissioners court had retrieved custody of the park. Took it back and took care of it themselves. And that's the part of this story that lands hardest, I think.
Depression-era men — two hundred from Wisconsin, forty-eight from right here in Grayson County — dug and hauled and stacked native stone to build something for their neighbors. The state came and went. The federal program moved on.
But what those CCC workers built is still out there, two and a half miles southwest of Denison, still being enjoyed by the people of this county. Some things outlast every arrangement made around them.
What the marker says
Grayson County officials became aware of a growing need for a public recreation facility for the area's approximately 65,500 residents in 1930. Three years later the federal government agreed to create a small lake on land provided by the county. The county commissioners court purchased a site 2.5 miles southwest of Denison in October 1933 and secured the services of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), a federal public works program, to construct the dam and build a recreational park. In early November, 200 men from Wisconsin who comprised CCC Company 857 arrived in Grayson County to begin construction. Many men returned home in April 1934 at the end of the six-month contract. Though it was unusual to employ CCC workers in their own areas, 48 Grayson County men were enlisted to replenish the supply of workers in Company 857. By 1934 the CCC men had created a recreation center with a lake, a roadway, 13 culvert bridges, six "battleship" picnic units, a baseball diamond, and a partially completed central tower of native stone. Initially called Grayson County Park, the facility was renamed Judge Jake L. Loy State Park in 1934 in an effort to secure state assistance in completing the park. The commissioners court retrieved custody of the park in 1937 after no state maintenance had occurred. Under the supervision of the county commissioners court, the facility created by the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps program continues to be enjoyed by area citizens. (1998)