Will Green owned the property that is known today as the Sandra J. Shaw Community Health Park. He bought the property in the early 1930s and owned the property for about 30 years before selling it the VFW. Mr. Green was part owner of Green Brothers Hardware Store, along with his brother, Albert A. “Al” Green, Jr. The hardware store began in 1914 on the east side of the 600 block of Massachusetts Street. It moved to a larger building on Massachusetts Street soon after. As the business grew, Will Green’s two sons, William R. “Bill” Green, Jr. and Robert “Bob” Green joined the business. Green Brothers Hardware was finally sold in 1969.
Both Greens, Will and Al, were also active in the community. Al once served as president of the Chamber of Commerce. Will was Douglas County’s chairman of the World War II Scrap Metal Drive. Bob Green remembered during the early part of World War II they pulled down the brick kilns that were on the Green property, which also housed an old brick plant. The kilns were reinforced with railroad irons. Once taken down, the plant yielded three rail car loads of old railroad irons for the scrap drive.
The original brick plant was built by John McFarlane in the late 1880s. The plant wasn’t large enough to produce the demand, so a group was formed to purchase the plant. After becoming incorporated and building a new plant, they were producing 35,000 bricks daily and employing 40 people. After nearly 20 years, the Lawrence Vitrified Brick Company was abandoned due to the competition of concrete as a pavement surface.
Green’s Lake, as it was called, was created when the brick plant was digging up the clay and shale to make the bricks. Rumor has it that an old steam shovel is still buried in the lake. Around the edge of the lake more than a dozen small cabins were built. Originally, they were used by guests on vacation. In 1942, they were used in the war as emergency housing for defense workers.
In 1935, Will Green began Lawrence’s first and only zoo. He, along with Charles Dean Bunker, assistant curator of the University of Kansas Dyche Museum, had an interest in animals and relics and began building the zoo cages and acquiring animals for the collection. The first to be added to the collection were a pair of coyotes that had been captured near Green’s Lake in the abandoned brick yard. Green’s zoo grew when the family got a couple of bears from the Pratt Fish and Game Farm. Green also bought several other animals from area zoos. In time, the zoo had four bears, a 7-foot alligator and two smaller alligators, four or five coyotes, a pet crow, six raccoons, two red foxes, a monkey, porcupines, a mountain lion, a Gila monster and other local animals that were kept in cages. It was rumored that one of the alligators escaped causing Green to drain the lake in an effort to find the alligator and discover if it was eating all the fish. The alligator was never found and the rumor of a alligator in the lake discouraged late-night swimming.
Green also moved and reconstructed a cabin on the grounds to house a community museum of old tools, implements and curios. He opened up the park, lake, museum, and zoo to the public, free of charge, from the 1930s to 1951.
The flood of 1951 practically wiped out Green’s Park. Most of the items in the museum were moved to the hardware store for display in the windows. William Green died in late-1962. His brother Al died in 1980. Bill Green, Jr. moved to Arizona in 1952 and passed away in August 1990. Bob Green sold the store in 1969 and passed way in October 1979.