Winlow Park

Many years ago about 5 miles north of Marion on Highway 60 East there was a place that was known as Winlow Park. 

Virgil Stone, and family, who lived there created this park for people to use and enjoy.  Where the name Winlow originated is not known.  This picture was made in 1939.

Here is some history about the local park written in 1931. Not so many years ago it was a rather bare, uninviting tract of land with a few trees, a small house in the center of it, and unuusally high train trestle at the rear and a sluggish creek that meandered through the ground.  Today there are many benches, tables, and even electric lights that make it possible for a picnic to be given there with ease and convenience as a meal at the dining room table.

Mr. Virgil Stone, who is resonsible for the many changes and imporvments which have taken place at Winlow, has spared neither time nor money to make the park an attractive and inviting pace for picnickers and tourists.

A tourist camp containing three bedrooms and there garages has been built, a self-generating electric light plant has been installed, benches and tables have been constructed, swings have been hung from the limbs of the large trees and a 9-hole miniature golf course has recently been completed.

Mr. Stone makes no charges for the use of the park, but leaves the matter of whether they will pay or not entirely up to his guests.  He says that the park was improved for their use and enjoyment and it is his pleasure.

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Although the park is no more, I'm sure many Crittenden Countians remember having picnics at Winlow Park, it was well-known for family reunions, church picnics and just good old-fashioned family outings, when going on a picnic was considered family fun.  The swings and miniature golf course were not there in the 1950's as Mr. Stone wasn't there to see to the care of them.

Within the past several years the old home and grocery store combination of the Stone family has been removed as it finally gave up and callopsed from being empty and unused.  Although the appearance has changed a little, you can still see two of the tourist cabins that Mr. Stone built many years ago.

Winlow Park a part of our past history, now only a memory for some of us.