Clay County Parks
Explore Clay County
“There is nothing so American as our national parks. The scenery and the wildlife are native. The fundamental idea behind the parks is native. It is, in brief, that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. The parks stand as the outward symbol of the great human principle.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Craig Park
Former Brazil, Indiana Mayor Norval Pickett Junior initiated the development of George Craig Park in 1977. The Park name was established to honor Craig, a Brazil native and former Indiana Governor from 1953 to 1957. Craig Park contains over seventy acres comprised of both the former waterworks department for the City of Brazil and 54 1/2 acres purchased, with a grant from the United States Housing and Urban Development Department, from Rhema Mae Bennett. Today, Craig Park consists of two lakes available for bank fishing, two shelters, a mini-playground, two walking trails, and an overland running track developed by the Northview High School Cross Country Team. Brazil’s Craig Park located on north Waterworks Road with approximately three miles of walking trails, primitive campgrounds, and two large lakes for fishing, a growing softball complex known as Veterans Field, and new soccer fields that are being built. The park has hosted an annual fishing fun day in September for 12 years and has multiple picnic areas, large open areas for games and family gatherings, large quantities of wildlife including ducks, geese, deer, beaver, raccoons, owls, woodpeckers, squirrels, and groundhogs.
Contact: Marvin Moon
Phone: 812-533-9897
Forest Park
Brazil’s Forest Park on the south side of the city of Brazil has 49 acres of woodland, a 1/4 mile paved walking/go-cart track, 40,000 square foot wood playground, a four-field baseball complex, 13 picnic shelters, and a 267,000 gallon swimming pool. The park has hosted the Brazil Rotary 4th celebration for over 80 years. Its band shell has been home to the Brazil Concert Band since the 1920s and can easily seat 700 people. A large pavilion can easily put up to 1,000 people under roof for concerts and convocations. The Chafariz dos Contos (from "contos de réis", a former Brazilian currency) was given by the country of Brazil as a gift to the city, as a symbol of friendship, and was assembled in Forest Park in 1956. It is a replica of the original fountain located in Ouro Preto, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, built in 1774.
Contact: Marvin Moon
Phone: 812-533-9897
Hendrix Street Park
Hendrix Street Park, formerly Babe Wheeler Park, at Meridian and Hendrix Streets a 1.4-acre neighborhood park with a playground, two basketball courts, picnic shelter, mini picnic shelter, tee-ball field, and a large open area for field games and picnicking. It is a great location in the inner city to relax and spend an afternoon, and a good meeting place for small clubs and associations.
Contact: Marvin Moon
Phone: 812-533-9897
Clay County Skate Park
The Clay Community Skate Park, construction spearheaded by Roberta and Chuck Weliever, on Wesleyanan Church Street in Brazil was built with many contributors and opened in 2014. There are usually about 15-30+ youth at the skate park. They keep their skate park clean, and in good shape. The skaters treat each other with respect and go out of their way to help new skaters and bikers. When you pass by the skatepark, get out of your car. Stand beside the fence or wall (spectators are not allowed inside the skate park) and watch these youngsters as they practice their skills and finally enjoy skating or biking on their skate park. They have needed this skate park for many years. They love this park!
Contact: Marvin Moon
Phone: 812-533-9897
Saline City Community Park
Saline City is a town in Sugar Ridge Township. When first laid out, this town was named only Saline, but at the September term of Commissioners’ Court in 1872, on petition of the proprietor, the record was changed to make it read “Saline City.” Saline was founded by Henry Jamison in 1870. A post office was established when the railroad from Terre Haute out to Clay City (known as "The Y" at that time) went into operation in the fall of 1872. The timber industry gave commercial life, activity and prosperity to Saline City. Pickett & Jenks founded a stave factory here within the same year that the railroad went into operation, which also did the first general merchandising business. The boiler at the Wilson saw-mill, a mile and a half south of Saline City, near the Evansville & Indianapolis Railroad, exploded at 5 o'clock p. m., Saturday, June 28, 1873. Of the victims of this explosion, Robert Wilson, proprietor, and John Campbell, head-sawyer, were instantly killed, an employee named Crooks sustaining a broken leg, with contusions of the head and shoulder, another, named Combs, badly scalded. The cause of the disaster, as reported at the time, was 120 pounds of steam. The Knickerbocker coal shaft, the first mine opened and operated in the county south of Brazil, worked from 1872 to 1876. The pyramid of earth thrown up from the excavation is yet visible to mark the spot
Contact: Glen Wellman
Phone: 812-239-5512
Carbon Park
Carbon is a town and post office in the north part of Van Buren township, near the Parke county line, six miles from Brazil, at the crossing of the Indianapolis & St. Louis and the Central Indiana Railroads, the halfway point between Terre Haute and Greencastle. This place was founded by the Carbon Block Coal Company in the year 1870, so named from coal, which is largely carbon. The post office was established in 1871, and made a money order office in 1892. Carbon is the most populous and commercially important town in the county north of Brazil. A considerable area of the south part of Parke county is commercially tributary to this place. Carbon was incorporated in 1875, with a population of 500. There are seven other towns and post offices on the map of the country bearing this name, all located in the coal fields and so named for the same reason. The most disastrous fire in the history of Clay county was that suffered by the town of Carbon on the 25th day of March, 1905, which was caused by the falling of live sparks upon shingle roofs emitted from the smokestack of a passing locomotive on the Big Four Railroad. The estimated loss of property consumed was in round figures $85,000, a heavy and damaging affliction to befall a town of this size. Many of the business houses were swept away by the flames.
Contact: Mike Bemis
Phone: 812-420-2360
Bowling Green Park
Bowling Green Indiana is a community in Washington Twp in Clay County Indiana. In 1825 the first Post Office was established and the town incorporated as a town in 1869. It is believed the town was named after Bowling Green, Virginia. Bowling green was the original County Seat when Clay County was established in 1825 but due to the infrastructure development of the city of Brazil and its growth, the county sear was moved to Brazil in 1876. Today bowling green is visited by a large number of people making their way on highway 46 between Bloomington and Terre Haute. The Bowling Green Old Settler’s Picnic is the oldest reunion in the state of Indiana dating back to 1854. It all began as a one day Fair where settlers displayed their produce and were judged accordingly. People gathered with friends and neighbors. In later years the gathering became a community picnic and has carried on each year for 152 years. The Picnic has not taken a break for World War I or World War II, or the Covid Virus.
Contact: Kenny Rector
Phone: 812-835-5773
Goshorn Park
Clay City is a 147 year-old town (Est. 1873, current pop. ~ 850) in Clay County, located in south central Indiana. It began as a railroad town supported by farming, sawmills, mining, brick and flour factories, several schools and a pottery. Before World War I, it appeared that Clay City might even become a college town. At the time, the town had a renowned baseball team, a literary society, many college graduates, numerous inventors, and was considered so progressive it was dubbed “the Athens of the Wabash Valley.”
Most recently, Clay City’s “Mayberry of the Midwest” sign, slogan and the image that represents, captured America’s interest and attention. The Today Show (audience of 16 million viewers) broadcast the “Mayberry of the Midwest” story live on February 4, 2000 with locals Daryl Andrews and Jo Beth Haviland being interviewed. In this publicity aftermath, more than two hundred newspapers nationwide continued the coverage, while numerous magazines and other media outlets stated they will be doing follow-ups, articles and interviews throughout the year.
Contact: Mike Fowler
Phone: 812-239-6064
Centerpoint Park
Center Point, in Sugar Ridge township, the largest town in the central part of the county, on the Upper Bloomington road, ten miles southeast of Brazil, founded in 1856, by Martin H. Kennedy. The original plat comprised but sixteen lots, to which the proprietor made an addition of fifty six lots, just two years later. This place was so named from the post office, which had been established previously, in 1854, at a point practically central within the territory of the county. Located on the Bowling Green-Brazil mail route, Center Point had the advantage and benefit of daily mail delivery from its founding and all along through its history, which cannot be said of any other town in the county not on a railroad line, excepting the former county seat. Desirous of seeing the town improve, the proprietor sold lots at reasonable prices and on payments to suit purchasers. And having a saw mill on his premises, he provided lumber on the same terms to those wanting to improve their lots, he himself making improvements for sale or rent. The first house erected after the town site had been platted is said to have been put up by Joseph Ridinger, who was the pioneer hotel keeper.
Contact: Roy Smith
Phone: 812-835-3818
Optimist Park
Staunton is a town and post office in Posey township, on the Vandalia Railroad, twelve miles east of Terre Haute and four miles southwest of Brazil, founded in 1851, at the time the railroad was in process of building, by Michael Combs and Lewis Bailey. This town was originally named Highland, for the reason that an old time resident of the site, familiar with the country, claimed that the plat occupied the highest ground along the line of the railroad survey between Terre Haute and Indianapolis. When the application for a post office was granted it was necessary to propose a different name, as there was then a "Highland" in Lake County. As Staunton, Virginia, was the place of proprietor Bailey's nativity, this name was chosen for the post office and that of the town and railroad station made to conform
Contact: James Smith
Phone: 812-448-1506
Harmony Park
Harmony is a town in Van Buren Township, Clay County, Indiana, United States. The population was 656 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Terre Haute Metropolitan Statistical Area. Harmony, the oldest surviving town in the Van Buren township, on the National Road and on the Vandalia Railroad, nineteen miles east of Terre Haute, and three miles east of Brazil, originally laid out by John Graves, in 1839, but owing to the insolvency of his estate the land was sold and the town plat vacated. Sometime after the building of the railroad a town site was again platted, by Isaac Marks, which was put to record in 1864. This town was the eastern terminus of the Rapid Transit Electric Railroad line built in 1893-4, afterward purchased by the Terre Haute Electric Company, and still later becoming a part of the Terre Haute, Indianapolis and Eastern Traction Line. There is no reason to be assigned for the naming of this town and of the post office, also, other than that of euphony and suggestiveness.
Contact: Janice Booch
Phone: 812-448-8950
Knightsville Park
Knightsville sprang up in 1867 around an iron furnace which had been built the year before It was named for Dr. A. W. Knight, the original owner of the town site.[7] The Knightsville post office was established in 1870. Knightsville is located at 39°31′34″N 87°5′27″W (39.526209, -87.090828).According to the 2010 census, Knightsville has a total area of 1.04 square miles (2.69 km2), all land. As of the census of 2010, there were 872 people, 274 households, and 207 families living in the town.
Contact: Steve Withers
Phone: 812-442-0021
Poland Park
Poland is an unincorporated community in eastern Cass Township, Clay County, Indiana, United States. It lies along State Road 42 southeast of the city of Brazil, the county seat of Clay County. Its elevation is 696 feet. Although Poland is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 47868. The first blacksmith shop in Poland, Indiana was owned by James A Poland, the year was 1839. In 1841 J.B. Nees conceived the idea of starting a town and with conversing with the 3 other land owners all agreed to set aside land, and Poland was born.
Contact: Anna Long
Phone: 812-986-2685