New playground completed at Fort Griffin park

By Sam Waller

Fort Griffin State Historic Site has a new look with the completion of work on its playground.

Site manager Mitch Baird said the project took literally decades from conception to completion.

“I have been trying for 20 years to get this new playground,” Baird said. “So far, all the kids who have been down there are really happy with it. I’m happy with it because it’s taken me 20 years to get the playground updated.”

The need became more urgent a few years ago when one of the slides, a 12-foot tall piece dating from the 1960s, was removed after being deemed unsafe.

“The kids were mad about that,” Baird said.

The project was finally approved by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials in 2019; then the bidding process and pandemic caused things to drag out even longer.

“We put out a request for a proposal and had three playground companies give us bids,” Baird said. “Play Time, Inc., out of Goodrich (northeast of Houston) got the bid for the job, but it took them quite a while – like a year-and-a-half – to get out here and assemble the playground.”

Part of the problem, Baird said, was that the supplier shipped excess equipment.

“When it entered the port up in Canada, customs seized the entire playground and went through it searching for drugs because they had sent extra parts,” he said. “That held the project up.”

Once the equipment arrived on site in November, it took another two weeks to assemble, Baird said.

The facility includes two regular slides, a twisty slide, monkey bars, and tunnels.

“It’s a really good playground,” Baird said. “We’re pretty sure parents are going to like it. They can send the kids out now and see them from most of the campground.”

Baird said the new setup has received rave reviews from two playground experts – his 5-year-old daughters Isabella and Zaileigh.

“The girls have just been thrilled to death because ‘Daddy bought them a new playground’,” he said. “They’ve been down there as often as we’ll take them.”

But the project is still not complete, Baird said.

“We’ve got an order out for four loads of playground sand,” he said. “We’re going to come back into the area that doesn’t have fall protection and put new sand out. We flooded one year, and a lot of sand got washed away. I told my wife that it was funny because we spent $76,000 on this new playground equipment, and the girls were sitting there playing in the sand.”

Also in the works is obtaining a cover to shade the entire playground.

“That’s going to take some funding because those things are not cheap,” Baird said. “There are some covered items, but it would be good if we could get the entire playground under a shade.”

The playground is just the latest in what Baird hopes will be an extensive renovation of the site. In October, work was completed on resurfacing all roads and walking paths in the fort grounds, allowing visitors using wheelchairs or strollers to more easily navigate the area.

“It makes me feel good to see moms pushing strollers and not struggling with the rocks we used to have along the paths out there,” Baird said.

The viability of future projects will be discussed at a meeting with TPWD higher-ups in January.

“We’ve got quite a few things on the list to discuss with the bosses,” Baird said. “Hopefully, we’ll get some new projects going.”