A six-foot bronze statue of a golfer, weighing roughly 300 pounds and cemented into the ground near Dallas Love Field, was stolen overnight on Sept. 24 from the site of the former Hilliard Memorial Golf Course. The statue honored a golf course established in 1950 as the first municipal golf course built for African Americans in the southern United States, and as of Oct. 22, no arrests had been made and the investigation remained ongoing.
The statue stood in the 6700 block of Mabel Avenue in the Elm Thicket/Northpark neighborhood, just east of the Love Field runways, according to Fox 4 News. It had been installed the previous Juneteenth to mark the legacy of the golf course, which closed decades ago when Love Field expanded — dmagazine.com reports the course was built in 1950 and shut down four years later, while People Newspapers states it remained open until it was bulldozed for the airport's expansion in 1955. Dallas police received an official report of the theft on Sept. 30, the station's account notes.
Per WFAA, Jonathan Maples, president of the Elm Thicket/Northpark Neighborhood Association, has lived in the neighborhood for more than 60 years and also serves as a commissioner on police oversight for the city of Dallas. D Magazine reported that Maples said the statue's removal would have required more than one person and a truck.
A Statue Meant to Outlast Generations
“We placed it here and dedicated it here with pride,” Maples told WFAA, describing the statue as a tribute to the golf course's place in the community. He said the former course had served as a gathering place for nearby communities at a time when, as he put it, African Americans were told where they could live. For Maples, the loss felt personal: his grandparents got their start at the course, and he said the statue was meant to carry that story of his parents and grandparents forward to future generations.
The theft near the former Hilliard Golf Course site — now occupied by Dallas Love Field — came after a similar case roughly five miles away at Freedman's Cemetery, where thieves stole bronze plaques in 2025 and police made an arrest, per WFAA's report. D Magazine reported that the pieces were never recovered. Separately, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reported that multiple people were seen removing plaques from the Freedman's Cemetery Memorial around 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 1, including plaques bearing 10 poems written by local students; Dallas Parks and Recreation said at the time it was unclear exactly when the plaques had been taken and that police were investigating possible vandalism.
Few Leads, Growing Calls for Cameras
Investigators and the neighborhood association have turned up few, if any, leads in the statue case, according to D Magazine. Maples has pushed for more Flock cameras in the area in response to the string of thefts targeting historic markers, which have now been hit twice within a year between the golf course statue and the cemetery plaques.
After the Freedman's Cemetery plaques were taken, officials installed a surveillance camera tower, a new sign and a chain lock at that site, NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth reported — security measures that echo what was already in place at the golf course statue, which had been cemented into the ground and secured with a chain before it disappeared. Residents in Elm Thicket/Northpark are hoping the statue honoring Hilliard Memorial Golf Course will still be found and returned to its spot near Love Field.
