Frankfort – Cove Spring Park
Black cherry, boxelder, and sycamore call Cove Spring Park home. So do Ohio buckeye, sugar maple, cottonwood, and a forest of other beauties rooted in this central Kentucky public park and nature preserve.
Hikers come here daily to explore as many as six miles of upper and lower trails that take them into the natural and industrial past of Kentucky’s capital. You can hike past remnants of Frankfort’s first public waterworks – a circa 1804 water system that was fed by the same spring that today supplies a 25-foot waterfall at the park. A stone overflow tower and parts of the old reservoir dam remain, along with a nearby 19th century farmstead.
If it’s hard to get excited about Frankfort’s municipal history, then there’s always U.S. history to consider. Public water was a rarity in the early 1800s in the wild west of Kentucky. The stone waterworks at Cove Spring is thought to have been the first of its kind west of Pennsylvania.
Today, the park and associated wetlands is making history all over again, although this time for their role in plant conservation.
Endangered Species In The Preserve
Kentucky has as many as 100 endangered or threatened plant species, and at least three of them call Cove Spring Park home. One is a federally endangered member of the mustard family called Braun’s Rock-cress. The other two — Svenson’s wild rye grass and an herb called globe bladderpod – are currently monitored by the state.
Only globe bladderpod is listed as endangered in Kentucky for now. Faring a bit better is Svenson’s wild rye, which is labeled by the state as threatened, but not officially endangered.
The good news is the nature preserve where these plants are found give them a chance to not only live but to thrive, with cooperation of the public. Park visitors are asked not to walk off trails or otherwise damage the more than 250 species of plants that live at the park.
The old rule “Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints” is still golden here.
Blackberry Meadow
My last trek through Cove Spring Park was this summer when I hiked with my pup, Roo, up to the Blackberry Meadow. This is where the globe bladderpod lives, among dozens of other native Kentucky plants like Rattlesnake Master – a tough name for innocuous species that attracts pollinators.
The meadow attracts people, too, and was practically designed with them in mind. Rock benches and walls repurposed from construction debris gives hikers a place to congregate, meditate, or maybe cogitate for a while among the birds and the bees.
It’s a cool place. Some even call it magical.
But it wasn’t always this way. What is Blackberry Meadow was once little more than a dump site until now-retired state geologist Brian Baker came along and transformed it. Baker was largely responsible for what you see there today, with the city’s blessing and help.
Check out this video about Blackbery Meadow by Jungle D Backpacking Wanderer:
Roo and I spent a recent afternoon sauntering around the meadow, me looking for any plants that I might recognize and Roo jumping at a butterfly or two (none were harmed). Scattered shade covered rock cairns left by hikers – signs of a place well-loved.
What Else Is At Cove Spring Park? Plenty
Altogether, Cove Spring Park has at least 240 acres of public land available for recreation, nature observation, environmental education.
Hikers have more than one way to enter the trail system. Meadow Loop, Blackberry Meadow, Raceway Spur, Spring Spur, the popular Osage Trail and Holly Trail, and a few other foot paths are easily accessed from the lower parking lot. The upper parking lot is the place to go for easy access to the park’s seasonal archery range and another Cove Spring favorite called the Sky Trail.
Sky Trail is a .6-mile pave, wheelchair accessible trail that gives visitors a view of downtown Frankfort and the State Capitol, weather permitting. Views of Fort Hill – the site of two Civil War earthworks forts – may also be visible on any given day.
If magic best describes the Blackberry Meadow, it could equally describe much of Cove Spring Park which also features a secluded children’s garden, an old trout raceway and more. And it’s available to everyone, each day, from 8 am. to dusk.
Interested in visiting Cove Spring Park? You can find more information here.
