Right now, it’s just a marshy area, a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The pond hasn’t been used since the ’80s, when young campers at the Lake Highlands North Recreation Center tried to wrangle catfish out of its shallow waters.
That’s about to change. The young mothers of the Lake Highlands Junior Women’s League have set their eyes on the pond as the next project in which to pour their time, effort and fundraising dollars. They and other neighborhood service clubs have worked with the Dallas Park and Recreation Department to spruce up Lake Highlands North, first with a sprayground, and next with a pavilion and brick trailhead for the loop trail that will soon wind through the wetlands and forest behind the recreation center. The new trail will travel near the old pond, and league members refuse to leave the pond as-is.
“It’s going to be restored to its full potential,” says league philanthropy chairwoman Emily Stout.
The Dahman family was the first to dam up the creek, creating a watering hole for cattle on their family farm. Fielder Dahman bought the land from the Spillman family, the first owners of the land, paying $3,000 for 50 acres in 1938.
“He was really anxious because he paid $2,000 in cash and financed $1,000,” Norcross says. “He had a lifelong fear that he would never be able to pay off that note.”
But in June 1961, Dahman sold 29 acres to the City of Dallas for $3,750 an acre, more per acre than he had paid to purchase all 50.
“God only knows what it would be worth today,” Norcross says.
The pond was part of the purchase, and when the recreation center was built in 1970, the city also built a small dam and a sidewalk over the dam, which connected the park to an alleyway, says Colby Jones, director of the recreation center from 1971 to 1991. He remembers a fishing tournament in the early ’70s, when the state brought in fish for the event. But Jones’ most vivid memory was in January 1978, when the pond froze over. While the annual indoor soccer tournament was taking place, children were outside trying to walk on the ice, despite Jones and his colleagues’ efforts to shoo them off. Then a child ran inside and said someone had fallen through.
“I ran out and there was a little girl struggling in the deepest part of the pond, which at that time was probably about six feet,” Jones says. “I ran out onto the ice until it broke under me, and made my way to the girl. I held her up until a neighbor brought a ladder and laid it on the ice. After helping the child crawl out, I took my turn.”
Charlie Bussey, a program supervisor at the recreation center for 27 years, remembers stocking the pond with catfish for summertime campers during the ’80s. The pond also was along that decade’s Trail of Terror, a Halloween haunted woods event with tombstones, people popping out from behind trees, and even someone running along the creek with a chainsaw, Bussey says. In the early ’80s, however, the energy crisis led the city to shut down upkeep of the pond because of a lack of funds, he says.
“There was a problem with the pond going dry in the summertime, and when it got warm, it would start to smell. It was horrible,” Bussey says. “So the City of Dallas decided it would try to come up with a solution.”
The city enlisted its landscape architects to create a plan, Bussey says, which included knocking down the dam and turning the pond back into a stream, plus adding some native grasses and other features. But the pond’s next-door neighbors, the residents of Lake Highlands North, wanted it to remain a pond.
“Dallas Park and Recreation went to the neighborhood association to try to raise money, and it was voted down,” Stout says, “but that’s a lot of money.”
Since that time, silt and brush have overtaken the pond, and the site has become “scary,” Norcross says.
“If you walked back there, there were needles, and it was pretty nasty, so it’s a great thing [the league] has directed its fundraising efforts to revitalize it,” she says. “I think it will be a great amenity for the neighborhood.”
The entire park behind the recreation center will be under construction by the summer, says Kenneth Pyland, project coordinator with the park department. Improvements to the pond include regrading, dredging and “whatever needs to be done to get it back to a bowl to hold water,” Pyland says, plus adding an aerating fountain floating in the middle to keep water circulating, along with a new pedestrian bridge that will connect to a Lake Highlands North alleyway.
Everything but the bridge, $60,000 worth of work, will be paid for with Lake Highlands Junior Women’s League fundraisers, the biggest being this spring’s annual fun run.
“We certainly appreciate that, obviously,” Pyland says. “They took it upon themselves to do a very challenging fundraiser this year, and I wish them all the best.”
This is the first project for which the league is solely responsible, financially speaking, says Cary Woodall, league president. The league has chosen to focus on Lake Highlands North, first by campaigning for the the sprayground and then assisting with funds for the loop trail, because the league’s members see the recreation center and surrounding park as the heart of the neighborhood, a gathering place for the community and a prime place to take their young children to play.
The pond fits in perfectly with pervious projects, Woodall says, adding that both the Lake Highlands North and Lake Highlands Estates homeowners associations have recognized its potential impact on the community and already have donated $2,500 each toward the project.
“We have set a big goal for ourselves,” Woodall says, “but with the support of the Lake Highlands community, the payoff will be well worth the effort.”
