Groundsite Image Gallery
Woodland Park
Artist: Hughes, Langston
Height: 0.000"
Width: 0.000"
Woodland Park, Prairie Ave. and Twelfth St.
This concrete footing was for the Daisy Dozer, a rollercoaster ride. It and several other footings are located south of the main trail, in dense undergrowth. Large masses of vinca minor, or periwinkle (above), suggest this area was landscaped in the past. Periwinkle is a domesticated plant and remains close to its original planting. The area was free of trees and brush at that time of the park, as seen in the old photographs.
Gary Marshall, who lived nearby, and his cousin, Donald Knight, remember abandoned wooden buildings and rides, but these were washed away in the 1951 flood.
Knight remembers the river further upstream, beyond Massachusetts St., was used for swimming, water skiing, and sunbathing in the 1940s and 1950s, and probably at the time of Woodland Park. This added to the stretch of the riverfront used for recreation.