Wilderness Park

Flooding and erosion as well as seasonal fluctuation in the flow of the streams in the area mean that land that is perfectly dry in midsummer or midwinter becomes completely inundated and impassible in Spring or Fall.Wildlife in the area includes foxes, deer, raccoons, opossums, frogs, hawks, owls, songbirds, and squirrels, as well as small fish and aquatic invertebrates.South of Saltillo Rd, Jamaica North connects to the Homestead Trail corridor, which as of July 2012 reaches to Beatrice, Nebraska, and will ultimately extend to Marysville, Kansas.[4] Some time after this, the land was purchased by the Burlington Railroad to operate Lincoln Park and more importantly to use Salt Creek as a water source for their steam engines.The railroad pumped roughly one million gallons of water from the Salt Creek through a twelve inch pipe to their roundhouse located southwest of Lincoln.[4] Concurrently in the late 1890s, a Methodist organization called the Epworth Association sought to bring the "camp meeting" style of retreat popularized at Chautauqua, New York, to Nebraska.[5] The growing popularity of the park, an average of 3,000 residents at its height, led to the construction of a village of cabins, a 60-room dormitory, and a 150-room hotel, as well as four restaurants, a grocery store, bakery, bookstore, and post office.Similarly, automobiles meant that families could quickly drive wherever they pleased for relatively low cost and no longer relied on the trains and streetcars which had helped to make Epworth Park thrive.[11] The second legend claims that in the early twentieth century, Wilderness Park was a wooded wasteland at the edge of town inhabited by a mysterious old woman.
Historical Marker at the site of the 1894 Rock Island Railroad Wreck
conservancyLincoln, NebraskaprairielandtributarySalt CreekJamaica North TrailBeatrice, NebraskaMarysville, Kansascorn millpond for the purpose of making ice in the winterBurlington Railroadsteam enginesroundhouseBoy Scouts of Americapower generated by the dammingincandescent lightingBoy Scouts Cornhusker CouncilMethodistcamp meetingChautauqua, New YorkNebraska Wesleyanman-made islandman-made Epworth Lakeornately-decorated rafts and rowboatsUnion Pacific railroadsU.S. Army BandEnrico CarusoTheodore RooseveltWilliam Jennings BryanHoward TaftBooker T. WashingtonBilly Sundayadvent of carsmass communicationtrainsstreetcarsCity of LincolnLancaster Countyland in public domain1894 Rock Island railroad wrecktrestlederailmentpedestrian bridgesurban legendsParks in Lincoln, NebraskaHistory of Lincoln, NebraskaSalt Creek (Platte River)History of NebraskaChautauquaChristian revivalProtestantism in the United States