Bob Noble Park: Paducah’s picturesque playground
For more than 80 years, Paducah-area residents have enjoyed the attractions of Bob Noble Park, the 35-acre recreational area just minutes away from the heart of downtown. From its beginning days as a thickly forested haven for moonshiners and outlaws to its current status as a center for picnicking, swimming, tennis, basketball, skateboarding and other leisure activities, the park has become an indispensible part of Paducah life.
In addition to 23 picnic shelters, an Olympic-sized outdoor swimming pool, six lighted tennis courts, four full-sized lighted basketball courts and the Paducah Skatepark, Bob Noble Park features an amphitheater, a five-acre fishing lake, two playgrounds, free Wi-Fi hotspots and more.
The park is a center of community activity year round, sparkling with holiday decorations in the Christmas season and echoing with the excited shouts of swimmers, cyclists and skaters in the warmer months.
The park enjoys a rich history, which is described in this city website. Paducah’s Park Commission contracted for the land in 1913 and took possession in 1921. Originally called Forest Park, it heavily wooded, with isolated sections that hid moonshiners and outlaws who would rob the helpless. The area didn’t see any improvements for a decade — until local benefactor Captain Robert H. Noble donated $10,000 towards upgrading the land. The park was then renamed to honor Noble.
What was once just a swamp was turned into an attractive lake stocked with bass, catfish and bluegill, and it remains a popular fishing hole to this day — as well as a home for ducks and geese. Thanks to Works Progress Administration labor during the Roosevelt years, the park’s original swimming pool was constructed. Continued work through the years has added amenities such as the lighted skate park, which is open until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 12:30 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
There are two buildings available for rent: The Anna Baumer Community Center, $45 a day, is a small, rustic building located behind the amphitheater. The Arts & Crafts Building, $50 a day, is near a large, covered pavilion with several picnic tables, which is also available for rent. Each can accommodate 35 people.
There are free wireless hot spots at the Skatepark, the adjacent Cherry Civic Center and at the pool. The pool is open Tueday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance to the pool costs $2 for youth aged 2 15, 50 cents for those 65 and older and $3 for adults.
HelloMetro Tip: If you visit the park, be sure to visit Indian sculpture Wacinton, part of a nationwide collection of sculptures by Hungarian-born artist Peter Wolf Toth. The Paducah artwork was hand chiseled from a local 56,000-pound red oak to honor the Chickasaw Indians who lived in the area until the Jackson Purchase of 1818.
Posted by Bill Wolfe
