The South Suburban Park and Recreation District is a park and recreation district containing 41 square-miles on the southern edge of the Denver, Colorado metro area. Established in 1959, the park serves around 155,000 people in six communities and three counties: Bow Mar, Columbine Valley, Littleton, Sheridan, Centennial west of 1-25, Lone Tree west of 1-25, and unincorporated portions of Douglas County, Jefferson County and Arapahoe County. [1] [2]
Denver, officially the City and County of Denver, is the capital and most populous municipality of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Denver downtown district is immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek with the South Platte River, approximately 12 mi (19 km) east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Denver is named after James W. Denver, a governor of the Kansas Territory. It is nicknamed the Mile High City because its official elevation is exactly one mile above sea level. The 105th meridian west of Greenwich, the longitudinal reference for the Mountain Time Zone, passes directly through Denver Union Station.
Colorado is a state of the Western United States encompassing most of the southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. It is the 8th most extensive and 21st most populous U.S. state. The estimated population of Colorado was 5,695,564 on July 1, 2018, an increase of 13.25% since the 2010 United States Census.
The Town of Bow Mar is a Statutory Town in Arapahoe and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. The town population was 866 at the 2010 United States Census. Bow Mar is a part of the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area.
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There are over 100 parks in the district, including 61 playgrounds and athletic fields. [3] The district includes several community recreation centers, swimming pools, ice arenas, almost 50 tennis courts and an indoor tennis center, a BMX track, a miniature golf course and batting cages. There are several public golf courses and a disc golf course. There are over 3,000 acres of parkland and greenways and nearly 100 miles of trails.
BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general on- or off-road recreation. BMX began when young cyclists appropriated motocross tracks for fun, racing and stunts, eventually evolving specialized BMX bikes and competitions.
Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game, the aim of the game is to score the highest number of points. It is played on courses consisting of a series of holes similar to its parent, but characterized by their short length.
Disc golf is a flying disc sport in which players throw a disc at a target; it is played using rules similar to golf. It is often played on a course of 9 or 18 holes. Players complete a hole by throwing a disc from a tee area toward a target, throwing again from the landing position of the disc until the target is reached. Usually, the number of throws a player uses to reach each target are tallied, and players seek to complete each hole, and the course, in the lowest number of total throws.
Carson Nature Center in Littleton is located in South Platte Park, which includes 880 acres of open space along the South Platte River and Mary Carter Greenway Trail. Fishing is allowed in the five lakes and visitors can kayak through gentle water or rapids in the river. There is a regional trail for biking and running, and miles of natural surface trails. The Carson Nature Center museum includes live animals, exhibits about riparian ecosystems and their inhabitants, the South Platte Flood of 1965 which resulted in the construction of the Chatfield Reservoir, and wildlife in the park. [4]
The South Platte River is one of the two principal tributaries of the Platte River. Flowing through the U.S. states of Colorado and Nebraska, it is itself a major river of the American Midwest and the American Southwest/Mountain West. Its drainage basin includes much of the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado; much of the populated region known as the Colorado Front Range and Eastern Plains; and a portion of southeastern Wyoming in the vicinity of the city of Cheyenne. It joins the North Platte River in western Nebraska to form the Platte, which then flows across Nebraska to the Missouri. The river serves as the principal source of water for eastern Colorado. In its valley along the foothills in Colorado, it has permitted agriculture in an area of the Colorado Piedmont and Great Plains that is otherwise arid.
Chatfield Dam and Reservoir is a dam and artificial lake located on the South Platte River, south of Littleton, Colorado. The dam and reservoir were built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers as a response to the disastrous flood of 1965. In addition to its primary purpose of flood control, it serves as one of many water supply reservoirs for the city of Denver, Colorado. In 1966, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission projected a total federal cost of $74 million. Construction of the project was begun in 1967 and the dam was completed in 1975.
The district manages and maintains the portion of the High Line Canal Trail within its borders.
The High Line Canal (HLC) is a man-made waterway, used for irrigation and recreation, that serves the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area. It begins at a diversion dam on the South Platte River, some 1.8 miles (2.9 km) above the mouth of Waterton Canyon. From its headgate, the HLC runs generally northeast for 66 miles (106 km), passing through Douglas, Arapahoe, Denver, and Adams Counties.
