Forbes Magazine rates Encanto Park among the nation's best city parks

Dec. 8, 2009

Listing it alongside New York City’s Central Park, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and Boston Commons, Forbes Magazine has listed Phoenix’s Encanto Park as one of the nation’s 12 best city parks.

In the online article (http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/18/best-city-parks-lifestyle-travel-central-park.html) Forbes recognizes Encanto as an “"old-fashioned” park with charming attractions including boat rentals and an amusement park.

Encanto Park’s 65 acres, located in the heart of central Phoenix, boasts dozens of massive trees of numerous species. The 27 holes of the adjacent Encanto Golf Course along with the park offer residents more than 200 total acres of green space right in Phoenix’s urban core. Its fishing lagoons, stocked by Arizona Game & Fish, attract thousands of anglers each year. Visitors can rent paddle boats to set out on the park’s waterways. The park also features a sports complex with lighted basketball, handball, volleyball, tennis and racquetball courts; lighted picnic areas and grills; an exercise course; a playground; a pool; a recreation building; and restrooms. The Park also is home to Enchanted Island Amusement Park, with a host of rides for children ages 2 to 10 years old.

Encanto Park was built between 1935 and 1938 in what was then the northern part of the city. It has provided outdoor recreation for generations of Phoenicians from throughout the city of Phoenix.

The land was purchased, designed and built jointly by the federal Works Progress Administration and the city of Phoenix. For several decades in and around the 1950's, a band shell at the park hosted concerts and cultural events that would attract thousands of spectators. The park also hosted fishing derbies at its signature lagoon that attracted hundreds of area youth. Phoenix voters approved numerous bond issues over the years to expand and improve the park.*

Information is available online in the Parks link of the Phoenix Parks and Recreation Department Web site at phoenix.gov/parks or by calling 602-261-8991.

*Historical information taken from The Phoenix Area’s Parks and Preserves; Hartz, Donna and George; 2007; Arcadia Publishing.