Springfield Parks, Greenways, and Outdoor Spaces

5/7/16
Today we visited the seven remaining facilities on our list, went back to George Washington Carver Park, walked on another segment of Ward Branch Greenway, and stopped at couple of fire station fitness tracks.

#96. O'Reilly-Tefft Gym 1408 E. Pythian
This was my first time at this location but Charlie had played volleyball here before. Interesting note: the description of this facility on the Springfield-Greene Park Board website is actually for the Oak Grove Community Center instead. This facility has a gym and a community room. The staff member said there were some open play times through out the week but most of the time the facility is rented for activities such as square dancing and youth/adult sports. We walked in and looked around. There was youth basketball practice going on this morning.

#97. Weller School-Park 1630 N. Weller
This school-park is in northeast Springfield and is listed as having five acres but there really isn't a park separate from the school playground. We had never been here before and we parked at the school and walked around the grounds for a few minutes. There were the usual swings and slides on the playground. The website doesn't list this park as having any amenities.

#98. McGregor School-Park 1200 W. State
This 2 acre school-park is in west central Springfield and we had never been here before. The park is behind the school and the only parking is on the street or in the school parking lot. There is one slide structure, swings, a basketball court and a soccer field. There is a track and additional playground equipment on the school grounds. We parked on the street and walked around for just a few minutes.

#9.(continued) George Washington Carver Park 800 S. Belview
We attempted to visit this park back on 3/20, the first day of our park journey. Today we parked on Belview Ave. and had to duck under a wire to get into the park from here but there was a well-worn path. We then walked down a rutted service road through woods and it initially didn't seem like we were in a park at all but then it opened out into this surprising large mowed, open area surrounded by trees. It is mowed all the way up to the entrance on Grand St. but there is no parking on Grand at all. The area is really very nice and would be a great place to walk a dog or to just walk around. There are no amenities but someone has hung a tire swing from tree. I was pleasantly surprised at nice this ended up being and I am glad we came back. We spent 25 minutes and walked 8/10 miles.

#99. Cherokee School-Park 5241 S. Holland
This school park is in south Springfield and we had never been here before. The address is on Holland but there is no access to the park at this address. There is a sidewalk about a block away on Holland that leads to the school grounds and there is access just around the corner from Holland on Canterbury. There is not an obviously separate park and there is no playground equipment since this is a middle school. There is a long and short track, soccer and football goals and long jump, discus and shot put practice areas. The website doesn't list an acreage for this park and does list a playground but there was no typical playground equipment. We spent 15 minutes and walked 0.65 mile.

#100. Wanda Gray School-Park 2101 W. Farm Rd. 182
We had never been to this 19 acre southwest Springfield school-park before. There is a green space with picnic tables to the east of the school but the only playground equipment is on the school grounds. There is a track around the school and there is also a trailhead for one segment of the Ward Branch Greenway trail. We walked on the greenway trail and completely around the school spending about 40 minutes and walked 1 1/3 miles.

#11.(continued)Ward Branch Linear Trail/Ward Branch Greenway
We walked on the other end of the segment at Rivercut Park on 4/9 and tonight we walked about a 1/2 mile starting at Wanda Gray.

#101. McBride School-Park 3200 W. Farm Rd 78
We had also never been to this 20 acre school-park on the southwest side of town and it was actually surprising in scope. There was a picnic pavilion with restrooms and a drinking fountain, one slide/play structure, soccer fields, an amphitheater, a disc golf course and extensive trails. The adjacent school playground has additional playground equipment. We walked around for about 20 minutes covering 6/10 mile.

David Harrison School Park 3055 West Kildee Lane
This is not on the list of 102 Springfield-Greene County Park Board facilities but is listed as a school-park on the parks facility map in the Park Bench. We pulled into the parking lot and just looked around briefly. This southwest Springfield school is less than a mile from McBride School-Park and there is only the school grounds here with the usual playground equipment.

#102. Horace Mann School-Park 3745 S. Broadway
This 2 acre school-park is in south central Springfield and this was our first time here. There is a pavilion, tennis and basketball courts, soccer and baseball fields, and swings/slides/picnic tables on the school grounds. We walked 1/4 mile spending less than 10 minutes.

Fire Stations #6 and #9
There are 12 neighborhood fire stations in Springfield and five of them are listed as having walking tracks. We had visited Fire Station #11 on S. Fremont previously and there was 1/4 mile track with 15 Parcourse fitness stations. We stopped at Fire Station # 6 at 2620 W. Battlefield tonight.  The track here was just an 1/8 mile track with no fitness stations.We walked the track only spending about 5 minutes. Next we stopped at Station #9 at 450 W. Walnut Lawn which also had a 1/8 mile walking track. We didn't walk the track because there was limited parking and part of the track appeared to be just the sidewalk.

We have now visited all 102 facilities listed on the Springfield-Greene County Park Board website. My best guess is that we had been to 46 of them before. I think this was a worthwhile undertaking. I revisited some old favorites, went to some places we had always meant to visit, and discovered some new places. We want to visit two museums we missed, Doling Museum and the Springfield Softball Hall of Fame Museum and I would like to go back to the Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden. We also to hope to make it to the Sequiota Cave tour next year. If I was asked to recommend some parks, I would start with Nathaneal Greene Park and all the facilities at that location. There are a lot of diverse activities there for all ages including playgrounds, the lake, gardens, the homestead and school building, the butterfly house, and walking and biking paths. This is an old favorite of ours. A new favorite is Ritter Springs Park which is just delightful with the lake, river and bluff area, the nice playground, walking trails, and connector paths to other trails in the area. We had never visited this park but always wanted to. A new discovery was Valley Watermill Park. We really didn't know anything about this park and it was really nice with the lake, spring, and the trails.

I want to cover the facility list briefly. There was a list of 102 facilities on the Springfield-Greene County Park Board website. Some things about this list were a little puzzling. One of the outdoor pools was listed as a separate facility but none of the others were. The Doling Museum is listed as a facility, but the Railroad Museum and the Softball Museum are not and the Northview Senior Center is listed while the Southside Senior Center is not. There are 14 school-parks listed and marked on the facility map. There 13 school-parks marked on the map but not listed as facilities and there some schools not listed or labeled on the map(but shown on the map in purple). Pittman Elementary and Rountree Elementary are two schools that are not labeled. I am not sure why some are listed and some are not.

Our goal of visiting all the Springfield-Greene Parks took us seven weeks and many miles. We visited all but one of the Ozark Greenways Trails, Sac River Mountain Bike Trail, and also visited several other interesting outdoor spaces along the way. There are several other places/trails I want to visit/revisit and we plan to go back to several of the places I've written about along with a few trail segments we didn't get to yet. I'll continue to write about the places we visit, near and far and inside and out!