When the developer of Springfield’s Parkcrest neighborhood decided to create a new subdivision outside the Springfield city limits, people told him he was crazy.
“He was told no one would ever want to live that far out in the country,” said Betty Smith Ridge, the daughter of Parkcrest developer Tom Smith.
His peers were wrong. The new neighborhood welcomed Springfieldians upon completion, many of whom were veterans who purchased their homes with the help of the GI Bill.
Smith, who had served in World War II shortly after Normandy, was an old hand at construction. A native of Marionville, he moved to Springfield following his high school graduation and worked on the construction of Route 66 in the Halltown area.
Following the war, Smith and his wife Mary built Sunshine Court, a classic roadside motel that sat on West Sunshine near Moore Road, not far from the Missouri State Highway Patrol headquarters. Mary would sometimes take a homemade pie to the troopers, which Ridge said may have been the reason that some of them became the first residents of Parkcrest.
Sometime in the late 1950s, the Smiths purchased 160 acres of farmland that at the time was outside of the Springfield city limits. The southern part of the city ended on Sunshine; past that, the M Highway that would later become known as Republic Road stretched out to the country. This was the land they would use for the Parkcrest neighborhood.
Before starting work on Parkcrest, they had already built more than 36 houses along Seminole, Holland, Clay and Dollison.
Smith decided Parkcrest would have seven streets: Westview, Highland, Riverside, LaSalle, Maplewood, Kingsley and Sylvania. Fairview marked the east side of the residential area, with Broadway the west and Michigan bisecting the middle.
“My father wanted to put in concrete, but the partners thought it too costly. Later, streets all were paved in concrete,” Ridge said.
Instead of concrete, the street was paved after water lines were laid along Westview. Additionally, a deep well was drilled near the intersection of LaSalle and Fairview, with a 125,000-gallon water tower, the second in Springfield.
“Everyone had a bicycle and the streets were easy to ride on,” Ridge said.
Students living in the area attended the Disney Kickapoo location, until South Kickapoo was built in 1960, now known as Cherokee Middle School. Neither of the Kickapoos were part of the Springfield Public Schools district.
Every Christmas, neighbors would drape a string of lights over the water tower.
“It looked like a giant Christmas tree. People would come out to see it,” Ridge said.
In addition, there was no fire protection in the county, leading several Parkcrest residents to organize a volunteer fire department, with a pumper fire truck kept on-hand in the shop/fire station building adjacent to the water tower.
“Five people, including the most active volunteers, had red fire phones in their houses and would answer when a fire was called in, then summon the others. My father served as fire chief and I recall Orville Watterly and Rex Kirkpatrick were among the volunteers,” Ridge said.
She added that Kirkpatrick, a retired mechanic, used to run the pump and engine equipment after they arrived at the fires.
“At some point during the 1960s, Sheriff Mickey Owen focused on expanding county fire protection and I remember him purchasing the Parkcrest fire truck. That was probably about the time Parkcrest was annexed,” Ridge said.
Also during the 1960s, John Q. Hammons developed Village Green, off of Walnut Lawn. Shortly thereafter, in 1963, Horace Mann Elementary became the neighborhood school.
Despite opposition, Parkcrest was incorporated into Springfield around 1967. To accommodate the new residents, the Parkcrest Shopping Center was developed with a Consumers Market, Newport’s Ben Franklin and a discount clothing store.
“My father did not want to have any of the merchants directly competing with each other. So we had one men’s clothing store, one women’s clothing store, Parkcrest pharmacy, a hardware store, beauty and barber shops, an insurance agency, Heritage bookstore, a Hallmark shop, Glo Cleaners and a few other businesses. Parkcrest Dental Group got its start in the center, as did Parkcrest Veterinary Hospital,” Ridge said.
A studio owner had promised to show wholesome movies and caused quite the uproar when he went back on his word.
“Just before the theater opened, [my mother] and other residents were scandalized to see posters of scantily clad women and films with provocative titles. Springfield had its first X-rated movie theater and I doubt most Parkcrest residents welcomed it,” Ridge said.
“It was a bit of a local scandal, provoking picketing by politician O.K. Armstrong, who had appointed himself as a guardian of public morality some years earlier when ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ was released,” she added.
Instead of Studio Theater, residents decided to get their movie experiences directly in their backyards from the Hi M Drive-In. At a neighborhood meeting, people fondly recalled sitting in the backyard and enjoying the features. For them, it was literally a night at the picture show, as they were unable to hear the movies from that distance.
Ridge said she is pleased with the atmosphere Parkcrest has today.
“We drive through Parkcrest frequently. It makes me smile when I see people working in their yards, taking good care of their houses, kids playing and enjoying life in what is still one of Springfield’s nicest places to live. The houses may not be the biggest or most expensive in town, but their owner’ pride is obvious,” Ridge said.
It was a feeling her mother seemed to share.
“Whenever my mother was introducing herself to people, even long after they’d left Springfield, she’d always say, ‘We built Parkcrest,’” Ridge said.
“To her, that was their crowning achievement and one that remains their legacy,” she said.