Learn about the hidden history in Columbia’s newest park at the 7 p.m., Tuesday, November 28 meeting of CoMo Preservation in the Columbia Public Library. All CoMo Preservation meetings are free and open to the public.

Guest speaker Bruce Alspaugh will talk about the unique features of this 201-acre park named for his father, John W. Alspaugh. Bruce’s mother Carol Ann donated the land in January 2023, after his father’s death on March 29, 2022. The gift is the largest land donation to Columbia Parks and Recreation, according to a Jan. 20, 2023, KOMU report.

City of Columbia’s conceptual plan for the John W. Alspaugh Park. The final plan will be decided after public input meetings in 2024.

The park on Mexico Gravel Road and Vandiver Drive is already open to the public, although with a limited gravel parking lot. You may already know this park as the land includes the Hinkson Creek Tree Farm where in the past families would buy their holiday trees.

The Alspaugh family donation stipulated it must be maintained as a natural, green space with an eye toward wildlife preservation. 

The city has developed concept plans, but the exact use and development of the park will be determined after public input meetings sometime in 2024, said Gabe Huffington, director of Columbia’s Parks and Recreation.

At the Nov. 28 meeting, Bruce will talk about the park’s origins and share the history of the land and information on the two little-known cemeteries that remain – and will remain – as a part of the park. The two cemeteries are the Antioch and Hinkson Creek cemeteries. The cemeteries are the resting place for some of the earliest settlers in the area including enslaved people. 

The markers in the older cemetery, Hinkson Creek Cemetery, were vandalized and moved prior to his father’s ownership Bruce said. With the property as a city park, he hopes genealogists, African Americans, and historians will come together to research and renew the cemeteries. 

Bruce grew up helping his father on the land that is now the park. A Columbia native, Mizzou graduate with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering, he works as a software developer. He also has a doctorate in electrical engineering from Iowas State University in Ames, Iowa.

His father, John W. Alspaugh, was a long-time MU statistics professor and began buying up the land in the area in the 1970s. He used part of the property as a “play farm,” where he hoped to recreate farming practices he’d seen in place in West Germany during his military service there during the Cold War, according to a Feb. 2, 2023 Columbia Missourian article. He had plans for community gardens and other developments to serve the community. 

Huffington of Parks and Recreation explained the donation agreement requires the city to maintain the park in perpetuity and to maintain but not necessarily restore the cemeteries. The agreement also requires the city to name the park the John W. Alspaugh Park and forbids new hard surface roads or allowing motor vehicles or bicycles in the park beyond designated parking areas. The agreement does allow for the development of nature walking trails.

CoMo Preservation’s mission is to increase awareness of the importance of historic places and spaces.