Wahouma Park

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Wahouma Park (formerly Lewis Park) is a 23-acre city park in the Wahouma neighborhood of East Lake. It occupies an irregular area between 69th Place North and 71st Street North, and between 1st Alley North and 4th Avenue North.

The park contains a softball field, football field, two basketball courts, a playground, a picnic pavilion and a small wooded area. A stream bed is culverted at 69th Street to permit access from the west. The stream runs northward to join Village Creek southeast of the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.

The park was purchased from adjoining Daniel Payne College in 1948 as a park for African Americans. It was named for Birmingham Park and Recreation Board chairman James Downey. The park was considered as a site for a football stadium, later constructed on Oporto-Madrid Boulevard as Lawson Field. The construction of I-20/59 required vacating a large portion of the original park area.

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