Author: Heather Milian

 The Vigo County Parks and Recreation Department has started the process of planning and writing our next 5-year Master Plan for 2025 – 2029. We invite the public to provide their input on our park successes over the last 5 years along with what they would like to see out of the parks in the next 5 years. The first public meeting will be held Monday, May 13th at 6:00 p.m. at Fowler Park in the Log Barn and the second public meeting will be held June 27th at 6:00 p.m. in the Vigo County Council Chambers at the Vigo County Annex. There is a survey, link provided below, for the public to participate in. This can be completed on your own or there will be tablets at the public meetings for people to take the survey on then. For any questions they can contact the office at 812-462-3392.

 Survey:

Master Plan Public Survey 

We’re hiring! We are looking for dedicated individuals to join our team for the summer to be Seasonal Maintenance, Seasonal Gatehouse and Beach Attendants! Applications are open now until March 30th, to apply be sure to visit vigocounty.in.gov or for questions call our office at 812-462-3392.

We hoped we wouldn’t have to make this post, but sadly mother nature had different plans for our maple syrup season this year. We believe due to a combination of an El Nino winter and the drought we’ve had our trees are not producing sap. There’s a lot of different factors in play and this is a problem that is happening not just here but all over. We sadly have not been able to collect enough sap to get our big boiling system going. We have syrup for our pancake breakfast and have a little in our reserves that we will be able to bottle during the breakfast, however, after this weekend we will have to call it quits to this year’s maple syrup season. For those attending our pancake breakfast at Prairie Creek we will have a handful of bottles that will be available for purchase, cash only. However, that will be the only syrup we will have for sale this year. We do apologize and wish mother nature cooperated better this year!

Campground reservations are now live for our 2024 camping season! Beginning this year, we have some exciting changes in the parks. The first change is due to popular demand, we have added more direct water hook- up sites to Fowler Park. All of the Riverbirch loop will now have both electric and direct water hook-up for your convenience. We also have expanded the dates for camping this year to keep our campgrounds open for longer. We hope this will allow you to enjoy camping well into the fall and to enjoy some of our Halloween festivities at Fowler Park. Last, starting this year all of our campgrounds will now be card only and will require a reservation and check-in. Check-in can be done online or can be done at the gatehouse at Fowler Park or Hawthorn Park after 2 p.m. You can make your reservation on our website today!

Yesterday was the day! We tapped our Maple trees at Prairie Creek Park to start collecting sap. Keep an eye on our social media and website for us to share when we will be boiling sap to make our maple syrup!

We are currently looking for a Hawthorn Park Caretaker!
Requirements for the position include:
– Establishing legal residence in Caretaker home
– Being present 24 hours/day in absence of full-time staff
– Maintaining park in absence of full-time staff
– Other duties as required
– Referrals encouraged

Benefits for this position include:
– Housing with utilities included

To apply, visit www.vigocounty.IN.gov! We hope to hear from you soon!

The start of 2024 means our maple syrup season is quickly approaching! We will be doing a maple syrup guessing competition again this year and the winner will receive a free quart sized bottle of fresh Indiana maple syrup right from our own Prairie Creek park! All guesses need to be submitted to [email protected] and guesses should be in gallons. The last day for submissions is January 31st! Good luck!