Recreation, Parks and Golf Courses

Oak Cliff is home to many beautiful and spacious parks — including Kiest Park, a major regional park with softball and soccer fields, a tennis center, a swimming pool, a recreation trail with exercise stations, a playground for handicapped children, a recreation center, a pavilion and a picnic area.

Other parks are historic in nature. Both Lake Cliff Park and Kidd Springs Park (which features a beautiful Japanese garden) date back to the early days of the community and played important roles in the area’s history. In addition, there are numerous neighborhood parks, pocket parks and greenbelts located throughout the area which provide swimming pools, playgrounds, picnic areas, walking trails and other recreational activities for the residents.

In addition to the parks, there are several recreation centers located throughout Oak Cliff that offer sports and recreational activities for the children, youth and adult members of the community, along with places for community meetings and classes to meet.

Oak Cliff has two fine municipal golf courses, Cedar Crest and Stevens Park. The Oak Cliff Country Club course has been the site of several PGA and senior tournaments in the past. Dallas National Golf Club, which opened in the spring of 2002, is an exquisite private golf club in west Oak Cliff designed by world renowned golf course designer Tom Fasio.

Joe Pool Lake is a major fishing and boating destination for the Metroplex. Access is provided at several points in private marinas and at Cedar Hill State Park, which also offers camping and picnicking sites. The park is also the site of Penn Farm, an agricultural history museum.

Oak Cliff is only minutes from Fair Park, which is home to nine museums and six performance facilities — including the Music Hall, Smirnoff Music Centre, Band Shell and the Cotton Bowl Stadium. In addition to hosting the State Fair of Texas every fall, Fair Park is the site of hundreds of cultural, recreational and educational activities during the year.

Dallas voters have approved $246 million to begin development of the Trinity River Corridor, which runs along one side of Oak Cliff. More than $1 billion in infrastructure is planned for the Trinity — including recreational facilities, the Great Trinity Forest Park, and connections to the Texoma Trail system.