SWEPCO Park officially became a park of the City of Shreveport in 1969 when Shreveport Mayor Clyde E. Fant signed Resolution No. 148 “to accept on behalf of the City of Shreveport for the purposes of furthering and expanding the recreational, cultural and aesthetic development of said City, and for the particular purpose of the use and enjoyment of public parks and recreational areas within the City, a donation unto the City from the Southwestern Electric Power Company.” (SWEPCO) For most of SWEPCO Park’s forty-eight year existence, however, the City of Shreveport has largely neglected it, most likely because the park resides in the low-income, majority-black neighborhood called Allendale. The evidence of SWEPCO Park’s neglect largely stems from the lack of it being mentioned in parks department master plans and in local newspaper articles on the Allendale neighborhood, many of which addressed the topic of the City’s attempts to revitalize Allendale over the past forty years.
