To mark 75 years of growth in ensuring space for active and passive recreation, staffers of the Ocean County Parks System this Saturday return to the spot where it all began - Ocean County Park on Route 88 in Lakewood.

Ocean County Park, Lakewood (Ocean County Parks System)
Ocean County Park, Lakewood (Ocean County Parks System)
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The celebration begins at 4 PM and continues until 8 PM, with a broad range of activities for families, children, athletes, nature lovers and history lovers.

From one tract on the county's southern and northern ends - Ocean County Park as well as Tip Seaman Park in Tuckerton - the system has expanded to include 27 tracts and some 4,000 acres, designed and built to fit their surroundings while offering recreation and education.

County Freeholder Director John Bartlett, in his 35 years on the board, has overseen nearly all the system's growth and taken a personal hand in land selection, acquisition and design.

The Lakewood site, he points out, was a bequest from the family of John D. Rockefeller, for whom the township was a haven of tranquility. The Board of Freeholders took possession in 1940. Shortly thereafter, it was the wartime spring training site for the New York baseball Giants.

As lifestyles have changed, so have the parks as each successive one was added. "It's been our goal, over the years, to put a county park within a reasonable commuting distance of every county resident," Bartlett said, adding that he still has the goal in sight with a "go-slow, do-it-right approach."

"You might find that you don't like what's available in one park, but you'll find another one with things that you absolutely enjoy," Bartlett said, giving ample credit to the department workers who tend them daily. "I want people to go into a park and say 'Wow, this is nice.'"

He noted with some irony that, thanks to Superstorm Sandy, he's now supervising the reconstruction of parks that grew under his aegis, including Cattus Island in Toms River and Berkeley Island in Berkeley Township.

From the coast on into the Pinelands, Bartlett insists on a congruence between parkland and its surroundings.

"I think it's absolutely imperative that, for a nice park, you've got to fit the use to the land," Bartlett said. "Lockheel Creek [177 acres in Barnegat Township] involves walking up and down hills and ravines. Someone said, 'Why don't you build playing fields?' Well, I wouldn't level the land if I had to. You just don't do that to land. You fit the use, and that adds to its beauty."

This Saturday's events include horse-and-buggy rides, nature and history walks, a children's petting zoo, canoeing, kayaking, magic, live music, an old-time ballgame played by the Bog Iron Boys, exhibits and demonstrations by numerous non-profit groups, arts and crafts, and food vended by Cuisine on the Green, the restaurant operated by the county Vocational Technical School Culinary Program.

Learn about the system at the Ocean County Parks web page or call 1-877-OC-PARKS.

 

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