Welcome To Mantle Manors Mickey Mantle’s Legend Lives on at Cedar Creek Lake
By Lisa Tang Actor and entrepreneur Rob Gough of DOPE streetwear fame surprised the world of sports memorabilia collectors in January when he paid $5.2 million — the highest ever — for a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle baseball card. Gough is not alone in how much he values the name of the greatest pitch hitter ever in professional baseball and arguably the best all-around player in history. In the Upper East Side of Texas some see reminders daily of the legendary baseball player as they go about their lives in Mantle Manors, a subdivision on the shores of Cedar Creek Lake, 70 miles southeast of Dallas. The New York Yankees star helped develop the properties in the 1960s. Mantle Manors is located in Gun Barrel City with street names including Leg-
endary Lane, Yankee Circle, Pennant Circle, and Mantle Drive. Today’s properties with homes — some in the original ranch style popular in the 1960s — sell for $140,000 and up to $450,000 for newer homes, depending on their access to the lake. A small, solitary sign now represents the Mantle Manors property owners’ association. It’s an enduring symbol of the community and a nod to Mantle’s role in attracting buyers to the booming development on the state’s fourth largest lake. The reservoir boasts 32,000 acres and 320 miles of shoreline. Mantle and his family — his wife Merlyn and four boys — moved to Dallas in 1958 for more privacy than they were able to find in New York. He was still at the peak of his career — a full decade before retiring from the Yankees in 1968. Cedar Creek Reservoir was constructed
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in 1964 and Mantle served as front man for a group of investors known as the GWM Corporation of Dallas, which sold lakefront lots for $695 each. Although Mantle never actually lived on the lake, he and his family spent weekends there from time to time. Advertisements used a bit of creative license with Mantle making statements that read, “Welcome to Mantle Manors. Your neighbor, Mickey Mantle.” Freelance writer and Cedar Creek Lake resident David Webb recalls a billboard also that stated Mantle and his family enjoyed getting away from it all on the lake shore. “There’s no longer a billboard on Highway 175 letting newcomers know that one of American baseball’s greatest players helped develop Cedar Creek Lake, but maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to erect another one,” Webb says. “His name will forever be linked
