The Maze

Frank Havens made one of the first improvements to Piedmont Springs Park by building a living hedge maze modeled on examples such as Hampton Court in England. A December 1904 Oakland Herald article showed a winding drive leading to a natural bowl and the new maze, though a red roofed pagoda and fields of roses added later were not yet present. The Herald portrayed the Maze at the western end of the park on the low grounds as a place of circles, semicircles, long straight rows of ornamental shrubbery, palms, flowers, and deciduous trees, with red stone roads winding through it. The maze was demolished after a new School Board bought part of the park land in 1920 for a new high school and future athletic field, while the city bought the remaining land for a municipal park. In September 1948, the high school athletic field was named for Jean C. Witter, a former football team captain killed in World War II, and that same night the first lighted football game was played between Piedmont High and Concord’s Mt. Diablo High School. Further renovations to the field followed in 1998 with the addition of a new field house, track, and synthetic turf.

Piedmont, California · United States