Steen equated growth with progress. He thought SFA’s problems would cease if it could expand its enrollment and its facilities. After initiating the University Center project, Steen turned to expanding the size of the campus. His eye fell first on the empty, under-developed tract of land known as Griffith Park, a part of the original Rusk Homestead just south of the main campus, bounded by Griffith Boulevard, North and Carolyn Streets. The park, a lovely piece of property which contained a thick stand of tall pine trees, was a gift to the city in 1917 with the provision that the land be kept in its native state as near as possible. The gift instrument said that if the city stopped maintaining the area or sold it, the rights would revert to the heirs of the Lycurgas E. and Martha T. Griffith Estate.

Steen’s decision to move on the project came before he had developed a master plan. Charles Haas, in a recent interview, said they was not even a good map of the campus when he came in the summer of 1959. As the Griffith Park project moved along, however, plans hardened. While the exact chronology of thoughts must await closer research, one can see in even a cursory look at the correspondence the evolution of what would become Steen’s first plan for the campus: a housing complex to the south and southwest, a cluster of classrooms and services around Campus Drive with the Library-Austin-Rusk Buildings at its core, and an athletic-farm area across Raguet Street in the east. His new University Center was being projected as the center piece of this new plan. The Griffith Park acquisition, in the context of Steen’s early prediction that SFA would double to around 4,000 students, made sense: it would allow for two major dorms, and would keep the campus fairly symmetrical. And the Park was free!

The saga of Griffith Park started quite innocently. The issues seemed clear. The city had the land, the college had the need, and both wanted growth. The city leaders, represented in this case by the Chairman of the City Commission M. M. Stripling, quickly agreed to transfer the property to the college. The park, however, had two encumbrances: first, a legal entailment. The state, however, even in amicable cases, oftentimes filed for condemnation procedures in order to secure a completely free title; the Griffith Estate included a long list of heirs, some of which could not be found. The legal problem could be handled. The park, however, had something else attached to it: tradition and emotion.

Many of the legal issues which surround the Griffith Park case accompany any public domain condemnation procedure. The heirs were contacted, the majority agreed to the transfer, and the plans for the new dormitories went forward. One heir, however, niece of the donors from Dallas, refused to sign away her reversionary rights; she protested the college’s violation of the will, the tradition attached it, the prospect of high-rise buildings replacing the pine trees, and even Steen’s arguments about the future development of the campus in that direction. What ensued was a long, drawn out case fought not only in court, but more importantly also fought in the court of public opinion and the newspapers. Letters, hurt feelings, posturing, denunciations, recriminations, and new arguments got into the issue to cloud everything. Steen even published an article in the heat of battle reviewed elsewhere (Story, here); while not naming names, Steen denounced tradition and obstructionists. The Griffith Park issue had hit a nerve.

The legal and letter campaign lasted for years. Steen eventually got the park; there was never any doubt about that happening, and Dorm 15 opened in 1965. Most of the heirs thought they had been treated fairly, but Steen had to compromise with them. He bought the their good graces by naming the first dorm after grandmother Griffith and putting grandfather Griffith’s name on the new Fine Arts Building. He had to promise to save as many pine trees as possible and had to agree to set the new dormitories back a hundred feet from the curb on North Street. The architects probably would have done this anyway. The park’s acquisition, however, was a dead end for future campus development. Steen’s master plan as the college continued to grow, had to move east, where the heirs said it should have been directed in the first place. Had Steen seen this in 1959, he could have avoided the whole Griffith Park issue, saved the park and its trees, and still progressed through growth.