Where’s Michael Grant? November 16, 2011

The Hole In The Water, is featured in various of the novels drawn from the Black Book Investigations of Michael Grant and Associates Series; or more succinctly: the Michael Grant series. Location plays a very active roll in these novels. I try to paint the picture of places where action is occurring, for two reasons. First, to orient the reader and give them a sense of the reality surrounding the action and around which to form their own mental images. Second, since this is a real location known to hundreds of thousands, it anchors those who know the location to the mental-GPS of their own memories.

It is a location known to many as a visual without a name, some know it colloquially as: The Hole In The Water or Hole In The Water or by its acronym, as used in Judas Oracle (JO) page 257 & 299: HITW. It is a place of tranquility, of beauty and yes, even wonder. My puzzling childhood question was, “How does a hole in the water, not fill up?”

Not far (a couple blocks SSE) from the busy intersection of Preston Road and Armstrong Parkway in Highland Park, (an island city in the midst of Dallas), where Armstrong Parkway ends at Preston and becomes Armstrong Avenue, you can find The Hole In The Water.

But before we leave Preston Road and Armstrong Parkway, here is another Michael Grant landmark, the huge one-hundred-fifty year old pecan tree (also known as the Million Dollar Monarch), planted in the mid 1860s, decked out in its Christmas lights.

[See video link re the MDM at bottom of blog.]

For many, like Michael Grant, it is a place to visit and see each December. Almost a pilgrimage, hundreds of thousands of people drive by to see this tree on December nights and enjoy the green, red, and blue lights filling its branches. In the course of a year of seasons, certainly, millions drive past and marvel at its strength and beauty. It has become a touchstone of memory for residents and visitors alike.

Traveling east from Armstrong Pkwy past Preston Road and into Armstrong Avenue you veer to the south and follow Lakeside Drive to its intersection with Wycliff Avenue. Looking left you will see through the trees and foliage The Hole In The Water. If you turned left you would be headed into the oncoming oneway traffic of North Fitzhugh which is westbound from an interior city limit of Dallas, a couple of blocks away. Thus the HITW is located in the horseshoe of streets created by Lakeside Drive on its east, North Fitzhugh Avenue on its south and St. Johns Drive on its west.

So, what is The Hole In The Water? 

From other headwaters, Turtle Creek, famed to never run dry, meanders through north Dallas and the Park Cities (University Park [on the north] and Highland Park [on the south]). In Highland Park is a cross-creek dam that created Exall Lake (see italicized reference below). Downstream from this lake the creek again gains strength before it backs up forming Wycliff Lake, although I’ve never seen signage to that effect.

This, “Wycliff Lake” bordered by its earthen banks is formed by a circular dam, ubiquitously known as The Hole In The Water. This dam forms a circular spillway into which the lake empties and thus is funneled below grade under North Fitzhugh Avenue where its flow continues southward above ground as Turtle Creek.

[Continuity Note: in “JO” I mistakenly had water from the HITW flowing under “Armstrong”, not “North Fitzhugh” as it actually does. I wonder how many of you 'caught' that?]

So now you know! When Michael Grant meets someone at the HITW you know where he is and what surrounds him. It is a place populated by ducks and geese, who often like to sleep, one-legged, on the edge of the circular spillway, as the water lazily slips over its lip.

During high water periods, such as spring rains, The Hole In The Water is even more captivating to watch and listen to. And to see it in winter, when the water sometimes comes close to freezing over or there is snow all around… it is particularly stunning. [Note: if you Google 'hole in the water' you will find that this circular spillway is not unique to Turtle Creek.]

Some have asked for more pictures of the places Michael Grant inhabits during his ‘adventures’. As time permits I will add other photographs.

TURTLE CREEK (Dallas County). Turtle Creek rises in north central Dallas in central Dallas County (at 32°51′ N, 96°48′ W) and flows southwest five miles, through Highland Park and University Park, to its mouth on the Trinity River (at 32°48′ N, 96°50′ W). The creek was named either by early settlerJames J. Beeman in 1842 or by some Texas survivors of an ill-fated Indian scouting expedition who camped on the creek in 1837. The stream has been “the most notable waterway in Dallas” throughout most of the city’s history and runs through some of its most fashionable real estate. Fed by springs, it has never run dry, and it has long provided the city with both useful and pleasurable services. Early beautification by Henry Exall took the form of Exall Lake, which became the biggest resort in Dallas in the 1890s. At a different location, black baptismal ceremonies took place on Sunday afternoons. In 1909 the city’s original water pump station was built on the creek, and the city park board acquired a 17½-acre private park (now Lee Park) there, since there was no public park in north Dallas at the time. In the next decade Turtle Creek figured prominently in George Kessler‘s city beautification plan, which included a system connecting all city parks. In 1959 the Dallas Theater Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was constructed in the woods on the creek. The city failed, however, to implement Kessler’s and other plans, and controversy regarding the Turtle Creek area arose among the park board, city council, citizens, and developers. Though a confrontation in 1959 over widening Turtle Creek Parkway to six lanes resulted in a court action by citizens against the city, the successful road expansion and city work along the parkway set standards and policy for other city park maintenance and land acquisitions. The increase of developers’ building requests along the creek prompted a city study to establish a policy for protection and development. In 1974 the city council unanimously approved a plan for a greenbelt along Turtle Creek near downtown Dallas to preserve open space in front of buildings facing the creek. Debate continued, however, regarding the nature and extent of development.

Citation

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

“TURTLE CREEK (DALLAS COUNTY),” Handbook of Texas Online

(http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rbtal), accessed November 16, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

Exall Lake is on Turtle Creek in Dallas County, Texas and is used for recreation purposes. It was built in 1944. It is owned by the City Of Highland Park. The land now known as Highland Park was purchased in 1889 by a group of investors from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known as the Philadelphia Place Land Association, for an average price of $377 an acre, with a total of $500,000. Henry Exall, an agent, intended to develop the land along Turtle Creek, as Philadelphia Place, exclusive housing based on parkland areas in Philadelphia. He laid gravel roads, and dammed Turtle Creek, forming Exall Lake.

Excerpt from:

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rbtal

See a great video of the Million Dollar Monarch. Starts about the 1:15 mark of the video clip. Except for the perceived negative-slant to the ‘history the tree has seen’, it is a well done piece.