The park boasted of a 3,000-seat theater, dance pavilion, a horse racing track, baseball field, swimming pool, exotic animal zoo, railway, a boardwalk beer garden, amusement rides, a penny arcade, a floating wedding chapel, and a hotel and restaurant.
The Gardens and Park were served by the city's extensive trolley service, which brought visitors from suburbs miles away in a matter of minutes.
Trolleys arrived at the Delmar Park station with its elevated platform and bridge to the dance pavilion and other structures, all designed by local architect William A.
Kansas-born Wells had studied architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago and may have spent a short time in the Oak Park studio of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Built to be a vaudeville house, Delmar Garden Theater also installed film equipment in 1903 to feature The Great Train Robbery, which ran for eleven weeks.
During its short lifespan Delmar Gardens served as Oklahoma City's premiere playground, drawing thousands of visitors and attracting entertainers like Lon Chaney Sr. and Buster Keaton, boxers John L. Sullivan and Jack Dempsey, and the legendary race horse Dan Patch.
Swarms of mosquitoes that accompanied the river's annual flooding contributed to Delmar Gardens' demise, and the advent of prohibition was the death blow.
Now operated as the Oklahoma City Farmers Public Market, the facility's boxoffice lobby, balcony, and stage remain intact.