Piqua: Parks, Riverfronts and History

Piqua combines woodland and river landscapes with places where the city’s history comes to life. When planning your trip, you can focus on different interests: walks and wildlife viewing at Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary, parks along the Great Miami River, or historic sites and exhibits in the city. This selection helps you plan a stay around your own interests.

Nature, Woodlands and Trails

Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary is a 100-acre park with an undisturbed wet beech-maple forest. Visitors can enjoy walks and wildlife viewing there. A 0.7-mile loop trail with a boardwalk adds a specific route to these activities. Nature enthusiasts will find woodland, wildlife viewing and a loop trail within the same sanctuary.

Piqua’s city parks also offer a variety of ways to enjoy the outdoors. The city’s 17 parks cover nearly 275 acres in total. Their listed amenities include fishing channels and hiking and biking trails. These figures apply to the park system as a whole; individual features such as fishing channels are not necessarily found in every park.

Piqua Riverfronts and Parks

The “River’s Edge” section of Linear Park runs along the Great Miami River and follows the former Miami-Erie Canal in places. Here, the riverfront and the canal’s historic route come together. This description distinguishes this stretch from parks characterized by particular trails, facilities or historic remains.

Lock 9 Park is on the banks of the Great Miami River, where the Great Miami River Trail and the Ohio-to-Indiana Trail intersect. The park contains the remains of Lock 9 on the Miami and Erie Canal. Its location by the river and along two trails, as well as the historic canal remains, define this place. Goodrich Giles Park offers a different focus: This 9-acre recreational area is on South Main Street, along the Great Miami River Trail.

City History and Historic Sites

Goodrich Giles Park honors Goodrich Giles, a formerly enslaved man and Civil War veteran who became Piqua’s first prominent Black businessman. The park and the story behind its name invite visitors to look beyond the landscapes and explore the history of individual figures in the city.

The Piqua-Caldwell Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 11, 1985. A self-guided walking tour of the district uses historic markers and QR codes to provide information about individual buildings. It combines exploring the historic district with explanations of specific houses. Visitors more interested in the city’s history than in nature trails can enjoy a different focus here from the river trails.

In the heart of downtown, McCulloch Square lies between Market Street and High Street, directly in front of the historic Fort Piqua Plaza. A pavilion and monuments honoring notable residents define the square. Its location and memorials set it apart from a park described primarily for its woodland, riverfront or trails.

Museum and Historical Research

The John Scott Garbry Museum features an interactive recreation of a town square with shops and craft demonstrations from the 19th century. This offers a different way to experience the past than walking among historic buildings: The focus here is on the recreated square, its shops and the craft demonstrations. The Piqua Public Library’s Local History and Genealogy Department also offers historical research resources and original historical documents.

When planning your visit, you can first decide which themes you want to focus on: woodland and wildlife viewing, trails and river landscapes, or historic sites and insights into the local past. Piqua’s parks and cultural sites appeal to different interests, so you don’t have to limit yourself to just one side of the city.

For the broader travel overview: Miami County.