About Us

DECATUR - Mrs. L.P. Walbridge and Mrs. E.P. Irving had a gift for the people of Decatur: 153 acres of lakeshore property. Thousands of trees grew on the land and people often rented cottages there. But there was a catch. The women were daughters of the late Robert Faries who had owned the property. They wrote a letter to the local newspaper, indicating they would turn it over only if the residents voted to form a park district. The district would take over management of parks that had been owned by the city. This was, the women said, what their father would have wanted.

And so, in 1924, the Decatur Park District was born. Over the next 87 years, the park district would grow to encompass more land, a zoo, an airport, an indoor exercise facility, and a slew of programs for the entertainment, recreation, and betterment of the community. The land also served as a site for the state fair in 1863, 1864, 1866, and 1867. Macon County Historian Mark Sorensen said the most important event in Decatur Park history might have occurred in 1901 when the city hired a man named Frank Torrence to be superintendent of parks.

Torrence immediately hired surplus workers and got to work planting flowers, clearing the grounds and with the formation of the lake, the city also was vindicated in its 1912 purchase of 83 acres of land adjacent to the Sangamon River. "He also made the park especially inviting to children," Sorensen said. Torrence's contemporaries would remember him as popular and hardworking. He died in 1928.

Nelson Park and Lake Decatur, though Lake Decatur is owned by the city of Decatur, its creation also affected the park district's future. Mayor Charles M. Borchers turned over the first shovel of land on the project in 1920. Three years and $2.2 million later, the public celebrated the lake's grand opening on the Fourth of July. The Beach House is opened Monday through Saturday and Sundays in the Summer.