Set back from Slaughter Lane, Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan Park is 344 acres of fields, trees and wildlife. It is a favorite of local disc golf enthusiasts, equestrians and picnickers who use the park's 10 barbecue pits.

The park is the lasting legacy of its namesake. The City of Austin purchased 88 acres from Searight using a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department grant, according to Austin History Center documents. Searight donated an additional 206 acres. The city named the park after her in November 1988. Newspaper articles at the time had compared the acquisition's significance to that of Zilker Park.

The Paris, Texas, native had moved to Austin in 1939 when her father was appointed acting chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. Mary Moore married Dan Searight and lived in the city.

"Beginning in the 1940s, the Searights began raising cattle and baling hay on acreage they had purchased from descendants of the Slaughter family—the family which gave its name to the creek which meanders through the property," an AHC biography says.

Following the death of her husband in the late 1950s, Searight kept the ranch and livestock operations going for another 30 years, the biography says. She was interested in environmental issues and was a founding member of the Austin Chapter of the Audubon Society.

Searight was reportedly offered multimillion-dollar deals for her land, but turned all of them down because she wanted her land to be a park.

The biography quotes City of Austin Property Agent Junie Plummer's impressions of her.

"Mrs. Searight had on a pair of work jeans, a crusty old cowboy hat, work shirt, a scarf tied around her neck, two ear bobs which did not match, and a small gun clearly showing in her pocket. She looked like a character out of a western movie along the lines of 'Lonesome Dove,'" Plummer said.

Searight reportedly moved back to Paris and died in 1996 after being assaulted in her home.

Today, the Friends of the Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan Park maintain the park through volunteer cleanup days.

Vice President Bill Meacham said the group successfully lobbied to get a field designated as a wildflower area and has built an off-leash dog area at the north end of the park.

Disc Nation Manager Shannon Bowls said the park has one of the most-utilized disc golf courses in the world. The store had conducted an informal survey and counted 200 people who had used the course during a single weekend day.

Park amenities

• Barbecue pits
• Disc golf
• Fishing pier
• Picnic tables
• Tennis courts
• Horse trails

Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan Park, 907 W. Slaughter Lane