Oakdale Park

Oakdale – 730 Oakdale Dr, Salina, KS

Background: I thought the city of Wichita was bad about offering a history on their parks but I couldn’t find any historical information on Salina’s largest park.

What we did: First off, we haven’t given up on the Wichita parks, we were in Salina meeting for a birthday dinner with my family. Jeremy and I decided to check out a Salina park. The waitress at Martinelli’s recommended Oakdale Park.

It is a pretty park. There were lots of areas for plants and flowers so I am sure it is nice in the summer. There was a little area with musical instruments like xylophones, chimes, and bells. I really wanted to play them, but there was a strange guy playing on them. Jeremy thought he might be high. So we kept our distance.

There are some nice bridges zigzagging over the river. A number of sculptures are spaced around the park along with other art installations. We spotted an area I thought was a splash pad turns out it was an interesting part of Salina history.

In the 1920’s it was a city pool. It was also used as an ice skating rink, and a shallow pond. In 1948 it was a “blacks only” pool. Now it is an art installation with patterns to represent the pool’s history. I included a screen grab of the pool on google maps, its the best way to see the design.

As we drove around I spotted a spiral slipper slide. I loved those as a kid. I think most of them have been removed because they are dangerous. I went down the slide. I tried at least, I fit in the slide, but I kept screeching to a halt, and had to kind of push my self down. I was out of breath but I reached the bottom. How sad to get winded going down a slide.