Conservancy Park in Neenah: A Short Prairie Walk in Late Summer
There is a little spot on the southeast side of Neenah that I had driven past plenty of times without ever stopping. It is called Conservancy Park, and it sits right in a neighborhood off S. Park Ave. I finally pulled in on a mid-August evening, mostly out of curiosity, and I am glad I did. It is small, it is quiet, and in late summer it is full of color.
Getting there and parking
The park is at 1674 S. Park Ave, on the southeast side of town. It is a Town of Neenah park, and their motto is “Urban Living in a Rural Setting,” which fits it well. There is a small paved parking lot right at the entrance with a handful of spaces, and it could not be easier to get into. You pull off the road and you are there. When I visited there was just one other family walking the loop, so I had most of the place to myself.
The walk itself is short and flat. There is a paved loop that runs a little under a third of a mile, plus a slightly longer woodland trail if you want it. You can do the whole thing in ten or fifteen minutes without hurrying. It is the kind of place you stop at for a quick, relaxing break, not a big hike. The whole park is only about nine acres.
The prairie in late summer
What makes it worth the stop, at least right now, is the prairie. Black-eyed Susans were everywhere, big drifts of them, mixed in with purple coneflowers and the first goldenrod just starting to open. There was blazing star adding some purple, and the whole place was humming with bees and other insects working the flowers. Stand still for a minute and you notice how much is going on around you.
The pond and the birds
In the middle of the park there is a good-sized pond with a fountain running in it. It is technically a stormwater detention pond, but you would never guess it from the way it looks, ringed with prairie plants and cattails. It is a good spot for birds. The park’s own sign shows a great blue heron and Canada geese, and there was plenty of bird activity while I was there.
What you are actually looking at
There are a couple of signs near the trail that explain what you are looking at, and they are worth reading. The prairie here is both a wet prairie and a mesic prairie, and the sign lists more than 46 native plants you can try to find, everything from big bluestem and Indian grass to bee balm, prairie coneflower, and Culver’s root. They manage it partly with prescribed burns, the same way these grasslands stayed open naturally before we came along. The sign also points out that well over 99 percent of Wisconsin’s original tallgrass prairie is gone, so a little restored patch like this one is worth having.
A nice quiet stop
There is a picnic table and a couple of benches if you want to sit for a while and just take it in. That is really what the place is set up for. It is not a big destination, it is a nice quiet stop, and for a ten-minute walk through a prairie in full bloom, you cannot beat it. If you are anywhere near the southeast side of Neenah, it is an easy one to add to your day.
If you like this kind of thing, the Fox Cities have a few more spots like it. Heckrodt Wetland Reserve in Menasha is a bigger version of the same idea, and the Menominee Park Zoo in Oshkosh is another easy, free little stop nearby.
