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Oakdale grew inside the former town of South Wayne, south of Rudisill Boulevard. Much of the ground was first platted as additions to the Town of South Wayne in the 1890s, but little of it was developed by 1910; beginning about 1912 the earlier plats were re-platted and built out, in the same wave of planned subdivisions that produced Southwood Park and Harrison Hill. The National Register nomination names the pieces: Arcadia Court, platted in 1912, and Englewood Court, platted in 1914, both by Hilgeman and Schaaf, and the Oakdale Terrace Addition, platted in 1917 by the City and Suburban Building Company along Oakdale Drive between Indiana and South Wayne Avenues. The nomination bounds the 47-acre district by Broadway on the west, Darrow Avenue on the north, Webster Street on the east, and Rudisill Boulevard on the south; the neighborhood association describes a wider Oakdale, from Calhoun Street to Broadway and from Rudisill south to about Kinsmoor Avenue, Violet Court, and Darrow Avenue. Most of the district was built between about 1915 and 1930, after George Kessler's 1911 hiring put the Oakdale streets beside his park-and-boulevard system.
The Oakdale Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 22, 2000, with 334 contributing buildings and 38 contributing objects. The Historic Oakdale Neighborhood association keeps the district's identity — tree-lined streets, a home-and-garden tour tradition documented since 2004, and some of the oldest houses on the southwest side. The association's own older blog is archived and copied through ACGSI; its live presence is social media and the Historic 07 District umbrella. No source found states where the name Oakdale came from, and none is offered here. The district's buildings are treated in the Architecture section.
Sources: National Register nomination, Oakdale Historic District (Ref. 00001132, listed September 22, 2000); Packard Area Planning Alliance plan, April 2005; ARCH/Oakdale Neighborhood Association tour account, The Waynedale News, June 23, 2004; Historic Oakdale Neighborhood association description via ACGSI neighborhoods page.