Ruddick Park was given to the city in 1929 in memory of pioneer William Penn Ruddick, a farmer and dairyman, and Mrs. Ruddick. History at this site began before Ruddick arrived: in 1840 Colonel John Henry Moore and 90 Indian fighters wiped out a Comanche village on the nearby Colorado, and the creek running through the park was named for Chief Lone Wolf of the Kiowa Indians, who camped along its banks. In 1880 Co. B of the Frontier Battalion, under Captain Sam McMurry, was ordered here to combat Indian attacks. After the Texas & Pacific Railroad came in 1881, immigrants began flooding the area. W.P. Ruddick, born in 1851, and his wife Sarah Hutchens moved from Oregon and lived in a half-dugout until lumber could be shipped from Fort Worth. A Quaker, Ruddick was one of the first in Mitchell County to raise cotton. He also planted an orchard, operated a dairy, brought the first registered Jersey and Hereford cattle into the county, ranched, and drilled water wells for his neighbors as well as himself. Soon after his heirs donated the original 20-acre park, an amphitheater and stage were built there, and the park now contains 138 acres.