Renaming of the Devereux Meadow Park Project
Renaming of the Devereux Meadow Park Project
Raleigh Parks invites you to participate in the naming of a future city park!
The Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources (PRCR) Department is developing plans for a new park north of downtown Raleigh. The park design is at the concept design ("big picture") phase and known as the Devereux Meadow Park project.
The project site, known informally for many years as "Devereux Meadow", is a 14-acre City of Raleigh-owned property currently used as a city maintenance yard and vehicle fleet facility. The City of Raleigh intends to convert this property into a natural and passive urban park. The current concept plan for this park includes site environmental remediation, pathways, plazas, natural spaces, extensive native landscapes, improvements to the Pigeon House Branch stream channel and floodplain, and constructed wetlands. For additional information, please see the project webpage.
Project site. This image is taken facing north. Capital Boulevard to the east of the site.
Photo credit: Design Workshop
The future park site has a rich and complex history, including uses as a former Minor League baseball stadium (1940’s - 1970’s; Devereux Meadow Stadium), a public recreation space and gathering area (early-to-mid 1900's), and a city maintenance facility.
The “Devereux Meadow” name is commonly understood to refer to John Devereux, Jr., the owner of several North Carolina plantations during the 1800's. While the name specifically refers to the aforementioned baseball stadium, the project site was once part of a large plantation called “Wills Forest”, owned by the Devereux family. The Devereuxs were among the largest slaveowning families in North Carolina. John Devereux, Jr. was also an officer within the Confederacy throughout the Civil War.
The City of Raleigh is aware of the issues and public concerns associated with the Devereux name, and the City appreciates the feedback received on this matter via public comments and survey responses. In a previous project survey, PRCR asked for the public's thoughts on a new park name. For reference, the public's naming ideas are included at the bottom of this page.
As directed by City Council, PRCR staff initiated a project re-naming process at the June 2022 meeting of the Raleigh Parks, Recreation and Greenway Advisory Board (PRGAB). This process follows Resolution No. (2021) - 278: Procedures Regarding "The Naming of City Parks, Parks Facilities, Greenways and Other Facilities. In accordance with the Resolution, park names are encouraged to be based upon "geographical, historical, and ecological context, indigenous to the park or facility’s area".
At the July 2022 PRGAB meeting, the board recommended the following three new names for the future park:
- Gateway Park
- Smoky Hollow Park
- Robinson-Greenberg Park
A description of each recommended park name is below.
PRCR now invites the public to express their preferences regarding the new naming options. Please see the question below and rank the choices in order of preference. Results of this survey will be presented to the PRGAB at their September 15, 2022 meeting.
Recommended Park Names
Gateway Park
Proposals for transforming this site into a public park have been discussed since the early 2000's. The proposed park received mentions in the 2012 Capital Boulevard Study report as a "significant and very deliberate gateway element as one arrives into Downtown from the north." The "gateway into the city" theme was repeated by respondents in surveys during the project's concept design phase. The future park will be a highly visible feature traveling along Capital Boulevard.
Smoky Hollow Park
The area previously known as Smoky Hollow developed in the late 1800's and was an interracial, working-class neighborhood in what was then the northwestern section of Raleigh. Several mills were built in this area of the city, such as Pilot and Cotton Mill, and the Smoky Hollow community was composed of houses for mill and railroad workers. The name "smoky" may have derived from the smoke emitted by the mills and train engines.
Nearby neighborhoods around the future park site, such as Smoky Hollow, were residential communities until the 1950’s when both African American and white families were forcibly removed from the area and their homes demolished.
Smoky Hollow’s approximate borders were Peace Street (north), North Street (south), Wilmington Street (east), and West Street (west). Therefore, the residential neighborhood of Smoky Hollow stood adjacent to—but did not include—the project site area, which was used during this time as a city maintenance facility, baseball stadium, and public playground.
Robinson-Greenberg Park
Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg were professional baseball players from the early to mid 1900's and are particularly celebrated for breaking through racial barriers in professional sports. Greenberg, a Jewish athlete, entered the Major League in the 1930's. Soon after, in 1947, Robinson became the first African American Major League player.
Neither athlete was local, but both have records, albeit brief, of playing baseball in Raleigh. In 1930, at the age of 19, Hank Greenberg played for a year with the Raleigh Capitals before moving on to other teams across the country. Greenberg’s time with the Capitals was a decade prior to the construction of the former baseball stadium on the project site.
Twenty years later, in October 1950, Jackie Robinson’s All-Star Team stopped in Raleigh to play a much-advertised game against the Raleigh Tigers, a local African American team associated with the Negro League. The game took place at Devereux Meadow Stadium, which formerly stood on the project site.
SURVEY QUESTION
Thank you for your participation!
Previous Survey Question (February - March 2022 Concept Design Survey)
The question below, which requested suggestions for a new park name, was taken from the Draft Concept Plan Survey, up from February to March 2022. Click "Show Comments" to see all of the suggestions and comments provided.