- Home
- Things to Do
- Muscatine's Parks
- Weed Park
Weed Park
About the Park
In 1899, the land that is now Weed Park was donated by Mr. and Mrs. James Weed to the City of Muscatine. Located in the northeast section of the city, the park is the perfect place to spend the day or have a group outing. Weed Park covers a total of 72 acres, including a three-acre lagoon with ducks, geese and other waterfowl.
The park is home to the Muscatine Aquatic Center and has fishing for children 14 and younger, a rose garden and zoo garden, playground equipment, bandstand, restroom facilities, concession stand, parking areas, picnic areas, seven picnic shelters, ten tennis courts (four of which are lighted), and two lighted sand pit volleyball courts.
¦ FOR MORE INFORMATION
Here's a map of Weed Park so you can see where you'd like to play. You can also contact the City of Muscatine's Parks and Recreation Department at 563-263-0241 for shelter rental and other information.
Here's a map of Weed Park so you can see where you'd like to play. You can also contact the City of Muscatine's Parks and Recreation Department at 563-263-0241 for shelter rental and other information.
Zoo Garden
Muscatine's Zoo Garden commemorates the small zoo Weed Park was once home to, which many older Muscatine residents fondly recall visiting as children. Now, they can relive those memories at the Zoo Garden's carbon steel menagerie which includes sculptures of a bison, a turtle, an elephant, a monkey, a lion, pheasants and a butterfly. The garden also helps keep history alive with its benches, some of which are fashioned from limestone from the old High Bridge, which once spanned the Mississippi River.
The zoo contained a historic log cabin that once housed the reptiles, a small ferris wheel and two timbered overlooks and a picnic shelter that were built after the zoo closed in 1980. The old overlooks have been removed and replaced to be handicapped accessible. They offer a great vantage point to view the Mississippi River.
The Zoo Garden is a collection of smaller gardens, some commemorating certain animals the zoo once housed like the buffalo garden and some commemorating Muscatine residents. The overlooks and gardens are connected by crushed stone trails, which also lead to the garden's picnic shelter.
The garden was developed, and is maintained, by Muscatine volunteers.
Rose Garden
Muscatine's Rose Garden boasts 12 beds of roses of more than 20 different species in a host of colors.
The garden was started in the 1940s, when local dentist Dr. J. Donald McPike and Park Commissioner Ollie Bentley planted some rose bushes. It was begun on the site of the former Weed Park Clubhouse and the brick walks surrounding the garden are the original walks that surrounded the 1906 building.
At the garden's heart, there is a gazebo where people can relax and enjoy the flowers.
Lagoon
Weed Park features a lagoon complete with three fountains, an island, a stone bridge, a trail around the lagoon and picnic areas and shelters overlooking it.
Children may fish at the Weed Park Lagoon using a large fishing dock which positions them out over the water, with plenty of places to sit and admire the catch of the day afterwards.
Patrons often come to feed the ducks and geese at the lagoon.