By the Coral Gables Gazette editorial board

The yellow brick path now winding through Coral Gables’ newest park does more than reference a beloved film. It marks a public invitation to remember, to reflect, and to honor a life of civic leadership that helped shape the city into what it is today. The dedication of Mayor Dorothy Thomson Park stands as a thoughtful and timely tribute to a leader whose story deserves permanence—not just in memory, but in space.

Dorothy Thomson’s public life spanned decades, but her influence runs deeper still. Elected in 1979 to the Coral Gables City Commission after an eight-year gap with no women on the dais, she rose to become the city’s first—and still only—female mayor in 1985. Her 22 years of service on the dais included bold decisions, cultural preservation efforts, and quiet, responsive governance. She helped save the Biltmore Hotel from demolition. She launched Citizens Crime Watch. She played a central role in establishing the city’s senior center and enhancing the city’s civic fabric in ways that endure today.

This new park, nestled just south of Bird Road on Toledo Street, is a work of symbolic urban design. The Wizard of Oz motif evokes a lifetime journey—from Thomson’s childhood in Depression-era Peekskill, New York, to her arrival in Coral Gables in 1953, to her election victories, and her continued service well into her nineties. The winding yellow path offers a quiet gesture to perseverance, imagination, and civic transformation.

In honoring her legacy, the park also affirms the city’s values. It demonstrates that Coral Gables still recognizes the difference between ceremonial memory and lasting recognition. Thomson’s name is inscribed into the landscape itself, into a space meant for community use, generational play, and civic storytelling.

This matters. Coral Gables today is grappling with questions about how it preserves its history, shares civic power, and plans for the future. In that context, the dedication sends a strong message: leadership grounded in service, responsiveness, and long-term vision is still worth celebrating—and emulating.

The moment also carries broader meaning. While Thomson was not the first or last woman on the Coral Gables Commission, she remains the only one to have served as mayor. Her election marked a turning point, and since then, women have maintained a visible presence at the dais—including Vice Mayor Rhonda Anderson and Commissioner Melissa Castro today. The park affirms that leadership is strengthened by perspective, and that inclusive representation builds civic trust.

Thomson’s civic résumé is notable for both its public visibility and private perseverance. After putting college on hold in the 1950s to raise a family, she returned to the University of Miami more than half a century later and graduated cum laude in 2008. Her orange Corvette with the custom “MAYOR85” license plate once turned heads around town. Her presence—whether through a campaign, commission vote, or community board—never sought credit, only contribution.

The dedication ceremony rightly drew a cross-section of Coral Gables residents and leaders, past and present. But the real measure of the tribute’s success will be in how the space lives on. Will future generations recognize the name? Will young girls playing in the butterfly garden ask who Dorothy Thomson was? Will neighborhood families walk the shell path and feel that their city remembers those who built it?

Parks are civic mirrors. In this case, the city has chosen to reflect integrity, continuity, and quiet courage. That is the legacy of Dorothy Thomson. The yellow bricks may shimmer in the sun, but the values they represent are solid.

This is a fitting tribute for a lifetime of public service.