Description
The park remained largely unimproved until the mid-1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps boys arrived (though there seems to be some uncertainty about exactly when the actual construction work began, two different contemporaneous sources reveal that as of the spring of 1935 work had not yet begun, but that by the spring of 1937 work was complete and the unit involved in finishing the work within the park—the 3777th company, originally from West Fork, where they were supposed to be involved in the ongoing construction at Devil’s Den State Park—were wondering where they would be shipped next) . The CCC boys camped at Fair Park (approximately one mile to the northeast) and worked on such improvements to Boyle Park as walls, signage, rest room facilities and a concession building in addition to the resources that survive. Their work on Boyle Park was considered sufficiently characteristic of the Rustic style to be included in the second edition of National Park Service architect Albert H. Good’s books Park and Recreation Structures.
Source notes
Arkansas Preservation: (https://www.arkansaspreservation.com/National-Register-Listings/PDF/PU9773.nr.pdf), accessed August 15, 2018.
Armour, C. W. L. , Supt. of Boyle Park, and Ewing L. Jones, Landscape
Architectural Foreman of Boyle Park, Boyle Park Report, compiled October 15,1935.Burggraf, Frank and Karen Rollet, Manmade Elements In Natural Settings, The CCC In Arkansas, (1988)
Good, Albert H., Park & Recreation Structures, reprint of 1938 edition
published by U. S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, (Boulder,
Colorado, 1990).Information provided by Matt Garner, City of Little Rock Parks and
Recreation, October, 1994.Nelson, Olive H., "Beautifying the Boyle Park, 11 Arkansas Gazette, Sunday, March 15, 1936.
Official Annual, Civilian Conservation Corps, Arkansas District, Seventh
Corps Area, 1937.A Review of Work Relief Activities In Arkansas, April 1st, 1934 to July 1st,1935, (Little Rock, Ark., 1935).
Project originally submitted by Travis Ratermann on August 17, 2018.
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