Penningt on Park
Improvements are on the way STORY & PHOTOS BY BETSY ILER
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mprovements are under way at Dadeville’s Pennington Park, from off-street parking and bocce ball play space to chainsaw carvings, maybe a fort wall and a bridge over the creek, said Kurt Pfitzner, who owns the park with his wife, Leigh. To better utilize the park’s creek area and an elevated strip of land behind the park’s gazebo, the Pfitzners shaped the hillside with a flat area that could be used for lawn games and overflow parking during events. A retaining wall will be added once the drainage study is complete, he said. “We have planted Bermuda and summer seed grass up there. We’ll add more Bermuda and will use the space for parking. We’ll have horseshoes and bocce ball and those kinds of activities on the grass when it isn’t needed for parking,” he said. While retaining wall materials and construction will not be finalized until the drainage study findings are reviewed, Pfitzner said he hopes to use telephone poles and incorporate a fort wall into the design. “We want to create a connection to Horseshoe Bend Park and other forts around Alabama, being careful to not celebrate the forts at the expense of the peoples and cultures that were affected by them,” he explained. During the excavation of the hillside, Pfitzner found a 1923 Dadeville Coca-Cola bottle. Collectors told him the bottle was quite rare, and the piece is on loan to the Tallapoosee County Historical Museum in Dadeville. In addition, Pfitzner has invited chainsaw artist Ken Rhodes to carve more tree trunks at the park, as there are a 10 Lake Martin Living
Always Getting Better few trees that need to be taken Top: Riprap has been down. When he cut two trees placed below the behind the gazebo a couple of new parking and lawn years ago, Pfitzner connected game area to prevent with Rhodes on Facebook and erosion as the grass asked him to carve faces in the comes in; Above: A lock bridge, similar 10-foot tall tree trunks. “We call them the Watchmen to the one above, is planned later this year. of the Park,” Pfitzner said. “In old Germany, the peasants often walked to the towns to buy their supplies, and they had to hike back through the woods in the dark to get home. They carved faces in the trees to guide them. “Ken started carving on those tree trunks, and it turned
