Springfield offers great parks, nature spots, gardens and prairie wilderness

You’ve been doing a lot of walking, mostly from one historic site to the next. It’s not really the legwork that wears you out – you’ve simply taken in all the details a mind can absorb. Tourism can be exhausting.

If you need a change of pace, why not check out one of Springfield’s more natural settings? The city offers great parks, nature spots, gardens and prairie wilderness. All Springfield parks are open dawn to dusk. Take time to relax, have a picnic and freshen up for the next historic site on your agenda.

Adams Wildlife Sanctuary

This is the perfect place for a quick nature walk without driving out of town. Just off one of Springfield’s busiest streets, Clear Lake Avenue, the sanctuary is a hidden jewel that’s accessible in minutes. Once a mid-19thcentury farm, it’s now a wooded haven for birds and birdwatchers and is owned by the Illinois Audubon Society. One trail takes 15 minutes to complete; a longer trail takes 45 minutes.

All told, the sanctuary features about one mile of trails. The visitor center offers information about the trees, plants and birds commonly encountered.

Visitors can also tour the newlyrestored 1850s Margery Adams farmhouse. Its award-winning, ecofriendly design features the use of geothermal heat.

Adams Wildlife Sanctuary, 2315 E. Clear Lake Ave., 217-544-2473. www.illinoisaudubon.org. Go east of downtown on Madison Avenue, which turns into Clear Lake.

Carpenter Park Nature Preserve

This 434-acre park and 341-acre nature preserve hugs the Sangamon River just north of town along Peoria Road/Business I-55, south of the Rail Golf Course. The park includes 10 trails, a large shelter with a fireplace, and several picnic tables. It’s a short jaunt from the Illinois State Fairgrounds and is adjacent to Gurgens and Riverside parks.

Heading west from Ohio, William Carpenter came upon what is now the park with his family in the fall of 1820. Native Americans from the Kickapoo and Tamaroa tribes were residents at the time. The Native Americans left the area, but the land remained fairly undeveloped through the years – you won’t find the park’s natural undulations and rock formations anywhere else.

The trails are a perfect place for a hike past ponds, marshes, woodlands and prairie. Look for hundreds of bird, plant and animal species, some unique to the area. Across the river, near the softball diamonds at Riverside Park, pet owners can let their pooches explore and exercise at one of the area’s only dog runs.

Carpenter Park Nature Preserve, IL 124 and Loop I-55, 217-544-1751. www.springfieldparks.org. Drive north from Springfield on Peoria Road/Business I-55.

Centennial Park

Calling all skateboarders! Springfield’s hippest park is a must-see for you! In addition to its wide-open spaces and opportunity for a great picnic away from Springfield, Centennial Park is home to a skateboarders’ run, dedicated in 2003. The smooth surface covers 10,000 square feet and is packed with the curves, dips and banks that will make your day. And for those not into skating, there are bocce ball courts and picnic areas.

Centennial Park, Bunker Hill Road and Lenhart Road, 217-544-1751. www.springfieldparks.org. Take MacArthur onto Wabash and continue west past White Oaks Mall, then start looking for Bunker Hill on your right. Look for the Centennial Park sign on that corner, then take a right onto Bunker Hill and keep going until you see the next sign and the parking lot.

Lincoln Memorial Garden

Six miles of trails take you through 100 acres of native woodland on Lake Springfield’s northwest shore at Lincoln Memorial Garden, designed in 1936 by the great American landscape architect Jens Jensen and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Each trail is dotted with benches etched with Lincoln quotes, and all plants derive from the three states in which Lincoln lived – Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana. The grove of sugar maples is always popular with visitors, especially when warm weather approaches.

Nearby are the garden’s Walnut Grove and Ostermeier Prairie Center, a former farm where once-cultivated fields were restored to native grasses and forbs. The garden is open daily, sunrise to sunset.

Special weekend events are held throughout the year, among them in 2011, Art in the Garden, April 30 (or the rain date is May 1); the Indian Summer Festival, Oct. 8 and 9; and the Holiday Market, Nov. 19 and 20.

Lincoln Memorial Garden, 2301 E. Lake Drive, 217-529-1111. www.lmgnc.org. Take I- 55 south to the Chatham/East Lake Drive interchange (exit 88), then head east (left) for two miles on East Lake Drive.

Lincoln Park

Lincoln Park on the north side of Springfield is an 88-acre site added to the park district in 1905. This is one of the historic parks developed as termini of the urban trolley line in use at the time. There is something for kids, mom and dad, even grandpa here, with two 18-hole disc-golf courses, tennis courts and a horseshoe park. Lincoln Park contains the greatest variety of sports-oriented facilities of any park in the district. The roadway network, trails and open space are used for walking, running and bicycling. The northern half of the park contains a soccer field, six ball diamonds with one lighted, three tennis courts, three shuffleboard courts and at least 20 horseshoe pits. Also in this area, the Nelson Recreation Center contains an outdoor swimming pool and two indoor ice rinks.

The historic lagoon just off the south entrance of Fifth Street was extensively renovated. A new water circulation system keeps contents fresh and filtered, pumping it from the low pool to the cascading water sluice, which returns it fresh and re-oxygenated to the high pool. Lincoln Park also has a cross country course and the historic Lincoln Park Pavilion, which offers scenic views as well as the historic lagoon. The pavilion was built in the early 1900s and is home to Lincoln Park Preschool. Reach the school at 217-753-6224. The Fun Shop, an early childhood development center, is also located within the park, and will celebrate its 35th anniversary this summer.

Lincoln Park, Fifth Street and Sangamon Avenue, 217-544-1751. www.springfieldparks.org. Take Sixth Street north from downtown or Fifth Street south from the Illinois State Fairgrounds. From Oak Ridge, take Monument to North Grand (left), and North Grand to Sixth Street (left). For information on Nelson Center events, call 217-753-2800.

Washington Park

Designed by Ossian Simonds, noted for his naturalistic style of landscape design, Washington Park is on the National Register of Historic Places. Springfield’s largest and most active park is home of the Thomas Rees Memorial Carillon, the world’s sixth-largest carillon. A weeklong International Carillon Festival, June 5- 11, brings in artists from around the world and audiences from around the country. Other events include an Art Spectacular in mid September and the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, in mid to late October. Carillon concerts are held at noon and 3 p.m. on Sundays in April and May; at 3 p.m. on Sundays and 7 p.m. on Wednesdays June through August; and at noon and 3 p.m. on Sundays September through December. Tours of the carillon are offered noon-dusk Wednesday through Sunday during June, July and August. Admission is $2.75 for adults and $2.25 for children. www.carillon-rees.org.

The Washington Park Botanical Garden features a 9,000-square-foot greenhouse, conservatory and gallery. A variety of gardens surrounds the conservatory, including a 5,000plant rose garden, the largest of its kind in central Illinois; a scent-and-texture garden for the visually impaired; an iris garden; a perennial border; the Betty Mood Smith Rockery; and Romancultural and outdoor cactus gardens.

Washington Park is also home to ponds, picnic shelters, playgrounds, public tennis courts, nature trails and bike and jogging paths. The 350-foot boardwalk overlooking the lower lagoon is a popular gathering place for joggers, walkers and feeders of the park’s many ducks. Playmates of all ages will enjoy the extensively modernized playground, next to the tennis courts. The tennis center is open spring, summer and fall from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Check out the two fishing ponds stocked with catfish and trout.

Washington Park, South Grand Avenue and MacArthur Boulevard, 217-544-1751. www.springfieldparks.org. Enter by South Grand Avenue on the south, Chatham Road on the west, Fayette Avenue on the north, or Orendorff Parkway on the east.

Southwind Park

If you’re looking for a brand new park to explore, Soutwind Park is the newest addition from the Springfield Park District, opened last spring and is located at S. 2nd Street and S. Wind Rd. The 80-acre park has two bocce ball courts, a fishing pond, four horseshoe pits, four shuffleboard courts, two small picnic shelters and the Hope Picnic shelter, open for rentals and family picnics. The park has a fully accessible playground and two and a half miles of concrete walking paths. The park is also home to Erin’s Pavilion, a 15,000-square-foot center available for weddings, banquets and business meetings. The park is open from dawn until dusk, seven days a week. www.springfieldparks.org.