Wilson-Morgan City Park

Last updated: October 31, 2023

Hello! I’m here to tell you about one of my favorite local parks here in Decatur, Alabama! Wilson-Morgan Park is special as it is the first park I visited with my husband and two fur kids back in 2019 when I move to Somerville. Decatur is awesome in that it has so many options for recreation, shopping and dining. I truly love the area. I was only 15 minutes from Decatur when I lived in Somerville, so Decatur is where I “went to town”. Grocery shopping, walking the dogs, dentist, Target/Starbucks… you get the gist.

So what makes this park special is the beautiful lake right in the middle with the 1.5 walking trail built all the way around so that you can continually walk in a loop. There are benches along the way to stop and watch the sun set over the water. I recently walked the dogs 4 times around and we enjoyed every second of it. As I was taking photos of the sunset, I was inspired to write this blog. It’s truly a beautiful place and that I fortunate enough to live close to it’s beauty!

In addition to the walking trail, there are fenced dog parks for small and big dogs, a tennis court, an outdoor gym (which was overly intriguing to me), a batting cage, playground, soccer field, and a softball field.

Because I work 8AM – 5PM Pacific Time, I am a morning walker since I don’t have to log in until 10AM Central Time. The park is not very crowded. I recently went one evening after work and was surprised to see how many people utilize this park at this time; it was quite crowded.

I wish the walking trail was better per the below bullets. These things aren’t dealbreakers but would pull my current 4-star rating to a 5-star.

• Trail conditions: it’s currently packed gravel and is honestly too muddy to walk when it rains. I would love to see this get paved as it would allow me to go anytime without worrying about getting my shoes gross. Also, I notice people riding bikes on this trail. How much better would it be for them if it was paved?
• Trail visibility to homeowner yards: there is a section of the trail where you have to walk past a bunch of houses. Most people have dogs and the dogs go nuts when they see someone walking on the trail. Also, there are people in their backyard mowing, barbecuing, etc. It would be better if there were some evergreen trees planted along this section to separate the walking trail from the homes, if nothing else just to prevent the dogs from barking their heads off. It kinda ruins the tranquility of the walk and also causes the dogs on the trail to get anxious.

On a final note, I have learned that on April 19, 2023, the Mayor of Decatur shared that $55M will be invested into Wilson-Morgan park for a state of the art recreation center. I love that this is coming and it’s great to live in an area that invests in the community.

With all that said, be sure to take a stroll around the lake to watch the sunset if you’re ever in the area! Im sure to you’ll love it. Here’s some photos of the first couple of times I first visited the park in 2019!