Adams Township Community Park: 266 acres of green space
Although nearly every township or borough in Butler County has a municipal park or recreation complex of some kind, few — if any — can boast of one quite as expansive as Adams Township Community Park.
According to property records, the massive park consists of at least 266 acres. Brian Perry, the township’s parks and recreation director, says the township still has plenty more room to develop the park, thanks to the acquisition of 102 adjacent acres of land from the Wygal family estate in 2021.
“What we’ve developed is probably less than half,” Perry said. “We have the Wygal farm, and it’s maybe a third of the size of the property. It’s an old dairy farm that we bought. Now it’s just land, and we’re looking to build it into a conservation and preservation area in the future.”
The township acquired the first parcels of land for the community park in 1997 from Karl Wirth. The park first opened to the public in 2000. In the first years since purchasing the initial plots of land for the park, the township added playgrounds, a 1.3-mile walking path, playing fields for baseball and softball and several park pavilions — the latter with the help of the Rich-Mar Rotary.
More recent additions to the park include all-weather, all-season courts for both basketball and the increasingly popular sport of pickleball, as well as the Splash Pad water park, which officially opened in 2023.
Work on the park never stops, even during the winter months.
“We just got the park roads paved last year,” Perry said. “One of our bigger things last year was making sure that we redid the roads inside the park. We’re constantly trying to maintain upkeep of the park as far as future use goes.”
This summer, the park introduced another addition which is becoming more frequent in Western Pennsylvania — an octagonal pit for playing gaga ball, a variant of dodgeball. The project — which officially opened to the public June 22 — was contributed to the park as an Eagle Scout project by local resident Evan Connolly.
The park now features a multipurpose athletic field, while the number of park pavilions has increased to five. Unlike the Splash Pad — which is open only during the summer months — the basketball and pickleball courts are open year-round.
“They are open during the winter,” Perry said. “It’s really at your own risk, depending on what the weather is. A lot of times, they’re snow covered, so it can be tough.”
Although the community park has been open for nearly three decades, it’s still a work-in-progress and always will be, according to Perry.
“As far as future development goes, that’s really still up for discussion,” Perry said. “There’s a lot of green space still out there in our park, but not every area of the park needs to be developed. I think a lot of people like the scenic and rural aspects of our park, so we don’t want to build just to build. We want to plan for the future with things that people want.”
While the park’s schedule of events for the rest of 2026 is still to be determined, annual highlights typically include Halloween and Christmas-themed events in October and December, as well as a car cruise held each September. The main attraction for 2026 was Adams Township’s America250 celebration, which the township had planned and hyped since the end of 2025.
The date for this year’s car cruise is set for Saturday, Sept. 12 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a rain date of Sept. 13.
“Our car cruise is a pretty large event in September,” Perry said. “All the proceeds go to a beneficiary. The beneficiary (for this year) hasn’t been named yet, but we’re working on trying to find a good local family to help out.”
While the community park remains Adams Township’s only publicly-maintained recreation space, that could change if the township’s proposed merger with the borough of Mars is approved by voters this November and takes effect at the start of 2028. The newly-merged township — which would be renamed to Mars Township — would also oversee Mars’ own parks, including Marburger Field.
Perry says that the merger may impact future plans for Adams Township Community Park if it goes ahead.
“There are some areas in Mars that we wouldn’t want to duplicate,” Perry said. “If we want to build a specific facility or amenity in the (Adams Township Community) park, we wouldn’t want to do anything that is already offered in Mars borough.”
