BENTONVILLE, Ark. — A new urban park full of natural experiences and recreational adventures just opened in Bentonville called Osage Park. It includes an archery range, along with boardwalks to explore the park’s 12-acre wetland ecosystem. In this week’s Adventure Arkansas, Meteorologist Michelle Trotter shows us what Osage Park has to offer.
Just a few miles from Downton Bentonville lies Osage Park.
Whether you want to explore the 12-acre wetlands or play pickleball while listening to live music, Osage Park has something for everyone including seeing some wildlife.
“We have beavers in the wetland, they are actually kind of responsible for creating the wetland. There's kind of a beaver lodge around the beaver dam, in the original pond.” - Jordan Burke
Osage Park lies within the little Osage Creek watershed. There are floating boardwalks that go through the wetlands so you are able to see the beavers. They are mainly active at night.
In fact, the wetlands system at Osage Park acts as a filter cleansing the water from the urban areas before it flows into the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers and many other communities along the way.
“So we are making effort over the next coming years to restore our prairie areas, you’ll see a lot of naïve flowers in these areas, they are very pollinator-friendly. We are also going to be removing a lot of invasive from our wetland and forest wetland.” - Jordan Burke
Not far from the wetlands, there are pickleball courts close to the pavilion, where you can relax and enjoy the outdoors.
If you get hungry, you could grab some food from one of the food trucks.
There's a trail that runs along a section of lake Bentonville. The lake is part of Bentonville Parks and recreation and offers fishing opportunities.
Just opened in 2021 Osage Parl also has an archery range. There are 20 archery lanes with 20 targets.
“The Quiver is a brand-new archery range in Bentonville. We have up to 70 meters available, which is an Olympic league length archery range. We want to be welcoming to everybody from the experienced archer to the beginner archer.” - Jana Stout
Quiver offers all types of programs, whether you want to learn the basics or become an instructor they also offer annual memberships
QUIVER OFFERS ALL TYPES OF PROGRAMS, WHETHER YOU WANT TO LEARN THE BASICS OR BECOME AN INSTRUCOR. THEY ALSO OFFER ANNUAL MEMERSHIPS.
“Also, if you just come out to play for a one hour kind of thing, we are going to give you a brief explanation of how to shoot and make sure you are able to stay safe on our range.” - Jana Stout
This Saturday, October 9th, the Peel Compton Foundation is hosting a free one-day community event from 10 am-4 pm at Osage Park. A Day at Osage Park will be filled with different opportunities to learn, play, and eat. There will be a variety of different vendors, along with tours of the wetlands, and also players from the USA pickleball team will be there to help learn to play pickleball. You can learn more information about the park and the event happening this Saturday on our website.