Graceada Park
401 Needham St, Modesto, CA 95354, United States
Modesto ‘s oldest city park, built in 1907, was designed by John McClaren, the designer of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. It was also one of the first projects of the Women’s Improvement Club (WIC), established in 1906 to create community parks, plant trees along the streets, pave the streets and set up a library. (WIC was the forerunner of the Modesto Garden Club today.)
Tree planting was very important to the community because Modesto did not have a natural forest, except along the rivers and streams.
In 1906, the only park in Modesto was the Eleventh and I Sts Courthouse. The park was small, and while it was a community meeting place, it lacked many amenities that the people of Modesto required. “North” Modesto was the first site for new parks. At the time, the northern border of Modesto was where Needham Avenue is today. The early streets of Modesto were not organized in a north / south, east / west direction. They were designed to be parallel and perpendicular to the rail tracks. The first streets laid out in a more traditional way were those surrounding what would become Graceada Park.
Graceada and Enslen Parks were planned as one park, Graceada being known at the planning stage as the “panhandle” and Enslen as the “panhandle.”
The name Graceada derives from the first names of the wives of the families who donated the land to the park-Grace Beard and Ada Wisecarver. Putting the two names together is Graceada. Enslen Park was named after the Enslen family, who donated the acreage to the “pan” part of the park.
McClaren, the park designer, was at that time considered a prominent landscape architect to the west of Mississippi. He traveled to Modesto in order to design Graceada, Enslen and other early parks. McClaren tried to replicate the natural tree groves in his park design. It’s easy to pick out the original trees in the park, since they are almost all in groups and are of a large scale. Today, about 20% of the original trees can be found in the park.
In 1906, the only park in Modesto was the Eleventh and I Sts Courthouse. The park was small, and while it was a community meeting place, it lacked many amenities that the people of Modesto required. “North” Modesto was the first site for new parks. At the time, the northern border of Modesto was where Needham Avenue is today. The early streets of Modesto were not organized in a north / south, east / west direction. They were designed to be parallel and perpendicular to the rail tracks. The first streets laid out in a more traditional way were those surrounding what would become Graceada Park.
Graceada and Enslen Parks were planned as one park, Graceada being known at the planning stage as the “panhandle” and Enslen as the “panhandle.” Tinkham ‘s findings on Graceada Park, published in 1921, have been fulfilled, although there are issues with the use of the park resulting in more police than was initially necessary:
