Rediscovering Wichita, Step by Step: Swanson Park

Due to my recent blood clot/deep vein thrombosis, I have, out of necessity, taken up a new hobby. Walking! It is amazing what you notice when walking that you don’t see when driving your car at 40 mph. It has given me the unique opportunity to rediscover my Wichita Neighborhood. I have also been walking at Sedgwick County Park where I did a geocache with a friend.

And I have found one of Wichita’s best kept secrets, Swanson Park, one of the Wichita Wild Habitat areas. This park is located in the northwest part of town and covers 93 acres. There is a paved 32 car parking lot 1/2 mile north of Central on the west side of Maize Road where a 1.3 mile paved trail begins. The Cowskin Creek flows through this park in a series of slow meanders. Native and restored prairie, old hay meadows and woodlands make up the area. Wildlife in the park includes wood ducks, meadow voles, and white-tailed deer. The deer are most likely to be found in the wooded areas where they find cover and food that the trees and shrubs provide.

Bring your own water as there are no drinking fountains in the park. Don’t forget the insect repellent as the habitat is great for breeding mosquitoes. Also there are no public restrooms or picnic tables. There are however plenty of benches to stop and take a rest and there is lots of shade as much of the trail goes through wooded areas.

The area was part of an 8 million acre Osage Indian Reservation. The US Government purchased the land for $1.25 per acre and opened it to white settlement.

“Swanson Park sits on land homesteaded in 1874 by Nels Swanson, a Swedish immigrant. Although his 160 acre tract had less farmable land than surrounding tracts, it was rich in wildlife with a dependable source of water---the Cowskin Creek. After receiving the title to the land, he tried his hand as a miner in Colorado for a few years. He returned in 1888 with his wife Elisabeth, and their two-year old son, Simon. With the help of a neighbor, they built a three-room house, a barn and outbuilding.

Simon, the oldest of Nels and Elizabeth’s three children eventually took over the farm. He married Ottilia Dueker in 1920 and they raised three children of their own: Kjersti, Gloria, and Harold.

Simon was a conservationist before the idea was popular. He rotated his crops, plowed straw into gullies to prevent erosion and left unbroken prairie grass borders around his fields to provide wildlife habitat. He maintained areas along the creek and in other parts of the farm in their natural state. The native prairie grass grew so tall in good years it reached above his head.

The farm remained in the Swanson family for 100 years. Part of it became Swanson Park in 1975 and the remainder was sold for the housing development southeast of the park. The quality of the wildlife habitat you see here today can be credited to the loving stewardship bestowed on this land by the Swansons”
---from one the many information display signs in the park.