Awbrey Park

Location: North of Spring Creek Dr. on River Rd. 

Originally a Lane County Park named after Lane County Pioneer Milton T. Awbrey, Awbrey Park is located just north of the intersection of River Road and Spring Creek Drive.  The park came to life in the early 1960s through many volunteers working with the Santa Clara Grange to make improvements.  Although the park remained essentially unchanged over the next three decades, the surrounding landscape was transformed from a quiet rural country setting to one of the fastest growing residential neighborhoods in the River Road/Santa Clara area.  In 1989 the County deeded the park to the City of Eugene.

Thanks to the 1998 parks and open space bond measure, Awbrey Park received an extensive renovation in 2004, and now contains two separate play areas, one designed for children ages 2-5 and the other designed for children ages 5-12.  The playground features multiple slides, climbing structures, spring critters, swings, and a digging station.  Existing or improved amenities include paths, picnic tables, park seating, horseshoe pits, and barbeque pits.  A new accessible parking lot has also been added, which drains stormwater through a bio-filtration swale.  This innovative feature directs water falling on the asphalt into and through a vegetated area which then filters out impurities such as heavy metals, oils and other foreign substances related to automobiles.

Spring Creek runs through the wooded northeastern corner of the park which is a haven for wildlife and native plants in this otherwise developed suburban setting.  Area residents have noted over 50 species of birds in the park, including wood ducks, downy woodpeckers, Cooper's hawks, great-horned owls, western screech owls, spotted towhees, and rufous hummingbirds.  Under the mature fir trees and big leaf maples one can see a variety of healthy native plants such as false Solomon's seal, thalictrum, trillium, osoberry, thimble berry, and ocean spray.  A new pedestrian footbridge across the creek and a path from the park to the residential neighborhood north of the park are planned for a future phase of development.

Awbrey Park contains an area managed as a Dispersed Natural Area.