Wilderness Park, Other Green Spaces Provide Room To Roam
parks, recreation, wilderness park,
Living in Prattville is a walk in the park – or at least very near one, considering the city is home to 18 parks.
Most of the city’s parks and green spaces include walking trails, and options also include activities ranging from organized sports at large complexes to quiet strolls through flower gardens.
A Prattville centerpiece is the popular and unique Wilderness Park, where 60-foot bamboo trees soar skyward amid a native forest that also contains the second-largest beech tree in the state. A new archway spans the park entrance, and a canopy of bamboo leaves shades the wide walking trail, lending an exotic air to the spot.
“Wilderness Park is a 26-acre park planted in bamboo throughout,” says Drew Peterson, director of the Prattville Department of Leisure Services. “It is located right in the city, but once you step inside, it doesn’t feel like it.”
Renovations have added new fencing and made the trail accessible for wheelchairs. Dead trees and branches that cluttered the ground in the historic park have been cleared away.
“It’s a unique park,” Peterson says. “There’s nothing like it in the entire state.”
Peterson ranks Upper Kingston Park as the most-used park in the city. Youth soccer leagues have the run of its five fields, and residents regularly hoof it around the 3/4-mile lighted walking trail.
“Upper Kingston Park gets used by walkers almost every day of the year – rain or shine, snow or sleet,” Peterson says.
The park also has exercise stations, a kiddie playground, picnic pavilion and a community center with a kitchen that is available for rental.
Overlook Memorial Park has the standard playground, path and pavilion, but it also is home to the Butch Ray Fragrance Garden – an area planted in flowers and shrubs that can be identified by their scent. Plaques identifying the various plant species are written in English and Braille.
At Cooter’s Pond Park, located on the banks of the Alabama River, Prattville’s four-legged residents now have space of their own to run in. Leadership Autauga County is building a 2.5-acre fenced dog park that also provides benches for people.
With its boat launch, large expanse of green space and three picnic pavilions, Cooter’s Pond Park also is a favorite site for community events, Peterson says. Numerous bass-fishing tournaments use the park as a launching point. Summer Movies Under the Stars and the annual fall Cyclo-Cross mountain-biking and cross-country race take place there as well.
Prattville’s historic downtown showcases ornate plants and a fountain at Heritage Park, which overlooks the Autauga Creek Dam and city founder Daniel Pratt’s vintage cotton gin.
Story by Carol Cowan
