Reed Park sits on the ancestral homelands of the Kickapoo, Osage, Wichita, and Comanche peoples.
1889 Land Run
The boundary of the neighborhood included two quarter-section homesteads from the Land Run of 1889. The western half of the neighborhood, between Independence and Portland, was homesteaded by Fred E. Champion, his wife Susan, and their four daughters. They sold it soon after, and by 1900 the family had moved. The eastern half of the neighborhood was homesteaded by Warren Benjamin Herriman, his wife Mary, and their daughter Mabel. The family sold the farm around 1900.
Development
After the homesteaders sold out, the neighborhood’s history is one of real estate speculation and prolonged development. Julia K. Goff, a real estate developer who platted the homestead in 1903, purchased the former Champion land. The Goff Addition was the western edge of the city limits and NW 10, the southern limit in this area.
In 1909 Linwood Place, north of NW 16, was platted and billed as the first “highly restricted” neighborhood. Hopes were that Oklahoma City’s elites would move into these country estates on the edge of town. “Highly restricted” meant that selling or renting property to people “of African descent” was banned. Linwood’s developers convinced street railway owner John Shartel to extend a streetcar line into the area. It was a selling point for residents who wanted the conveniences of the city and the peacefulness of country living. Linwood was also slow to develop and did not take off until the late 1910s.
As often happens, new developments sprang up around the exclusive Linwood addition. One of these was Classen’s Shartel Boulevard Addition in 1909. Classen was Shartel’s partner in the streetcar, and today’s Drexel Boulevard/NW 12 was initially called Shartel Boulevard and lent its name to the addition. This addition was on the Herriman homestead, but it only extended from NW 12 to NW 16 and May to Land Ave. Like Linwood, both Shartel and Goff offered large five-acre lots to give them a rural character. Shartel Blvd was also a restricted neighborhood and barred African American residents. Although Goff was not restricted, when housing was built, the land was generally subdivided and made restrictive.
In 1909 the city hired W. L. Dunn to develop a plan for Oklahoma City. Dunn devised a system of one large park in each quadrant connected by a “speedway” or ring road that encircled the city. This was today’s Grand Boulevard which now serves as a service road for I-44 in Reed Park. Access to Grand Boulevard was limited to a few spoke roads emanating from Downtown, one of which was NW 16. Access to the boulevard was a big plus for realtors selling lots in Linwood and Goff/Shartel.
The post-WW II housing crunch gave the Reed Park neighborhood the final push it needed to fill in. Aerial maps from 1937 show a largely rural landscape that is almost entirely filled in by the aerial map of 1951. Maps from 1949 also show that the future Reed Park neighborhood was still largely unpaved as well.
1937 Aerial Map 
1951 Aerial Map
1915 Southwest Sweepstakes
In 1915, one of the strangest episodes in Oklahoma City history occurred in Reed Park. That was the Southwest Sweepstakes auto race in 1915. This race featured the biggest names in early auto racing and some of the greatest in racing history. They raced on a loop that started on NW 12, curved onto Drexel, and back out NW 16 to Youngs Blvd. The odd-shaped curve of NW 12/Drexel where the park is now was a significant feature of the race. It was dubbed “Rainbow Curve” by the racers who had to pay it special heed because it was a gentle mud-rutted arc. An estimated 50,000 people sat in temporary grandstands or stood along the track to watch.
Reed Park
Reed Park is what gave the neighborhood its name. Franklin Reed made his fortune from pools of oil, but it was the wading pools of water that we remember him by today. Reed was born into poverty in Illinois but worked his way through law school as a young man.
Reed built four wading pools in Oklahoma City parks – Winans, Linwood (Wayman’s), Oliver, and what would become Reed Park. Frank Reed never expected cities to name parks after him, but nearly every city did just that. In 1930, the year the wading pool was built, the city council named Frank H Reed Park.
Girvin Park
The neighborhood’s other park is Girvin Park. It was donated to the city for use as park in 1912 and later named Girvin Park. Clara May Girvin was the first woman ever appointed to the Park Board in 1918 and served in that post for 31 years. She was also active in the local chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
