A largely undeveloped neighborhood gateway on the banks of Nasty Branch offering a chance to connect with nature.
Features
- Multi-purpose fields
- Open space
Parties and Rentals
History
Before McCormick Field, there was Oates Park. Located on the corner of Southside Avenue and Choctaw Street, it was named for J. Rush Oates, a businessman and sports enthusiast who helped form Asheville Baseball Club.
During its 1913 inaugural season, Detroit’s Ty Cobb played at Oates Park against Asheville’s Mountaineers. The Mountaineers became the first team to use the Asheville Tourists moniker in 1915 and brought the city its first professional sports championship the same year. In 1916, businessman and real estate developer E.W. Pearson established Asheville’s first Black baseball team, the Royal Giants. The team played at Southside’s Oates Park and Burton Street’s Pearson’s Park.
As Southside became the site of Asheville’s second large-scale urban renewal project (ultimately the largest such project in the southeast), many streets were widened, extended, shortened, or eliminated with the stated goal to transform the neighborhood into a more suburban and residential area. In 1973, the neighborhood’s “Six Points” intersection was eliminated and Choctaw Street mostly extended along Southside Avenue’s former route.
APR purchased land along the “new” Choctaw Street that same year to develop as a natural park, south of Congress Street and about a block away from the site of Oates Park. Asheville City Schools offered the lot to the highest bidder, so it was not included as part of HACA’s urban renewal project.
HACA did hold a small piece of land across Congress Street with tennis courts that the authority planned to use as a park. Unhappy with lack of progress, Dr. Wesley Grant Sr. organized a successful campaign for HACA to deed the land to APR and it became part of the larger park. As the flattest area, it tends to be the most active part of the park.
A long rolling green along the banks of Nasty Branch creek, Choctaw Park is ideal for a game of catch or grass volleyball.
Do you have photos or stories to share about Choctaw Park? Please send them to cbubenik@ashevillenc.gov so the City of Asheville can be inspired by the past as we plan our future.
Photo and Image Credits
- Asheville’s first Black baseball team, the Royal Giants, was established in 1916 by E.W. Pearson, developer of West Asheville’s Burton Street Community. In addition to playing ball, players held regular jobs. Though little coverage appeared in local papers, an article from IThe Asheville Citizen in 1920 highlighted the team’s success with a record of 71 wins, 18 losses, and 5 ties. This photo of the 1918 team in Oates Park is a gift from Iola Byers, Pearson’s daughter and first director of Burton Street Community Center. Courtesy of Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina.
- Prior to the East Riverside Redevelopment project, the street layout in Southside looked very different. (1917) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Sanborn Map Company, Nov. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn06372_008.
- Choctaw Park acts as a welcoming gateway into Southside from McDowell Street. Nearly the entire southern side of Choctaw Street consists of the park’s lawns, trees, and Nasty Branch creek.