What is the biggest park in Greenfield, WI?

Grobschmidt Park at 3751 W College Ave covers 152 acres, most of it undeveloped land with nature trails. Konkel Park at 5151 W Layton Ave, at more than 70 acres, is the city's main developed park, with playgrounds, sports fields, creek boardwalks, an amphitheater and the Sunday farmers market.

What are Konkel Park's hours?

Konkel Park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Parking is in the lots along W Layton Ave, and there are restrooms on site.

Where can I walk a trail in Greenfield?

Konkel Park has gravel and boardwalk trails along Honey Creek, the paved Powerline Trail crosses the city east to west from Pondview Park, Grootemaat Nature Preserve has a 0.7-mile loop, and Grobschmidt Park has about 0.8 miles of nature trails.

Who is Alan Kulwicki Park named for?

Alan Kulwicki was a NASCAR driver born and raised in Greenfield who won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Championship as an independent owner-driver. He died in a plane crash in 1993, and the 28-acre park on W Cold Spring Rd opened in his memory on June 6, 1998.

Where are the pickleball courts in Greenfield?

Dan Jansen Park at 4820 S 74th St has four pickleball courts, along with a playground, baseball and softball fields, and a shelter with restrooms.

Parks in Greenfield WI: Konkel Park, Trails & Preserves

Greenfield's best walk is on a boardwalk over a creek that was restored to stop flooding and now has fish in it again. Most parks in Greenfield are neighborhood playgrounds and ballfields, but a handful are worth a special trip: Konkel Park's restored creek trails, a 28-acre park built by the community for a NASCAR champion who grew up here, a paved trail across the city, and two quiet preserves on the east side.

Here's what each park is actually for, with the practical details that matter when you get there.

Greenfield's parks at a glance

Greenfield's parks split into three kinds: one big all-purpose park (Konkel), a set of quiet nature spots for walking and birding, and small neighborhood parks built around playgrounds, ballfields and courts.

Most are city parks, open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Alan Kulwicki Park is the exception in ownership: it's part of the Milwaukee County park system, and the City of Greenfield looks after it under a long-term agreement with the county.

Pick by what you want. For a long walk with kids and a playground at the end, go to Konkel. For quiet and birds, Grootemaat or Grobschmidt. For a trail you can bike, the Powerline Trail. For a quick playground stop, the neighborhood parks below.

Konkel Park

Stanley J. Konkel Park

Konkel Park at 5151 W Layton Ave is Greenfield's main park, open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and its restored creekside trails, boardwalks and fishing piers make it the best walk in the city.

The park opened in 1988 and 1989 with two softball fields, lights and a parking lot, and now covers more than 70 acres. Starting in 2019, a restoration along Honey Creek reshaped the natural side of the park to cut flooding and rebuild habitat. It added gravel trails, boardwalks and fishing piers, brought in native plants and planted about 700 trees. Fish now swim the creek again, and turtles sun on the rocks.

The rest of Konkel is built for use: two playgrounds, softball diamonds, a batting cage, outdoor exercise stations, four sand volleyball courts, a gazebo and an amphitheater known as The AMP, with concerts, food truck nights and movie nights in the warmer months.

Konkel is also the city's event ground. The Greenfield Farmers Market sets up here every Sunday from May to October, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the South Pavilion hosts the fall trunk or treat and a Holiday Makers Market.

This fall that includes Fall Family Fest and the trunk or treat at Konkel Park, a free afternoon event with candy stops for costumed kids.

Good to know: parking is in the lots along Layton Ave. There are restrooms on site, shelters can be rented, some of the new trails are fully accessible, and dogs aren't allowed inside the farmers market area on Sundays.

Alan Kulwicki Park

Alan Kulwicki Park | Managed by the City of Greenfield

Alan Kulwicki Park at 10777 W Cold Spring Rd is a 28-acre park named for the Greenfield-born driver who won the 1992 NASCAR Winston Cup Championship as an independent owner-driver running a one-car team. He died in a plane crash on April 1, 1993, and the park opened five years later, on June 6, 1998.

The community built it. A memorial organization raised the money through donations, including a $250,000 gift from Hooters founder Robert H. Brooks toward the pavilion, which the Greater Greenfield Lions Club now maintains. Racing decor and a memorial to Kulwicki are part of the grounds.

Day to day it's a family park: baseball fields used by Greenfield Little League, a play gym and swings, picnic areas with charcoal grills, a rentable pavilion and restrooms. It sits next to the Root River Parkway, the county greenway along the Root River, and a newer path, the Ridge Connection Path, runs from its southwest corner.

Good to know: the park is open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., there are restrooms on site, and the pavilion can be rented for events.

The Powerline Trail

The Powerline Trail

The Powerline Trail is a paved east-west path across Greenfield for walking, running, biking and skating, and it connects neighborhoods, businesses, parks and the wider trail system.

The eastern end is at Pondview Park, 4210 S 35th St, and the trail runs west across the city to meet the I-41/I-894/US 45 corridor. On the west side, there's a trailhead on W Cold Spring Rd at 9906, handy if you're starting near Kulwicki Park.

Pondview Park is the easiest place to start, with the trail end right in the park, and it's the eastern terminus of the paved route as of 2024.

Good to know: the trail is open 24 hours and paved end to end, and as the name says, it follows a power line corridor rather than a wooded route.

Nature preserves: Grootemaat and Grobschmidt

For a quiet walk, Grootemaat Nature Preserve on W Ramsey Ave has a 0.7-mile loop, and Grobschmidt Park on W College Ave has 0.8 miles of nature trails that are good for birding.

Grootemaat Nature Preserve

Grootemaat Nature Preserve at 4300 W Ramsey Ave is a small preserve with easy, well-defined trails, including a main 0.7-mile loop, and sections that feel removed from the roads around it.

The main entrance is at Ramsey Ave and 43rd St. There are two unmarked entrances too, one further west on Ramsey and one at the end of 45th St, which is useful if you're walking in from the neighborhood.

The two preserves suit different walks. Grootemaat is the short, easy loop you can finish in a lunch break. Grobschmidt is much bigger and rougher, the one for an hour outside with binoculars.

Grobschmidt Park

Grobschmidt Park at 3751 W College Ave is the wild one. Its 152 acres are largely undeveloped, with shrubs and trees, and about 0.8 miles of nature trails run through land that's under ongoing restoration.

That lack of development is the point. It's good birding ground, and it's the park to pick when you want to walk without playgrounds, courts or picnic crowds.

Good to know: Grobschmidt is open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and its trails are nature trails rather than paved paths.

Creekwood Park and Honey Creek

Creekwood Park

Creekwood Park at 5065 S 43rd St is a 4.2-acre park where a short woodland trail follows Honey Creek, the same creek that runs through Konkel Park.

It has a children's playground and a gazebo picnic area, and the creek draws birds: mallards on the water, red-winged blackbirds and grackles, robins, downy woodpeckers, and geese and blue jays through the year.

Good to know: the woodland trail isn't a loop, so you walk back the way you came. There's no parking lot; park along 43rd St.

Neighborhood parks, playgrounds and courts

Greenfield's smaller parks are mostly for playgrounds, ballfields and courts, and Dan Jansen Park on S 74th St is the one with a story.

Dan Jansen Park

Dan Jansen Park at 4820 S 74th St was dedicated in 1994 to Dan Jansen, the Olympic speedskating gold medalist, and a 50-foot gold flagpole stands at its center.

It's a small park set between businesses, homes and apartments, and it's been kept current: a renovated playground (resurfaced in 2000 for accessibility), baseball and softball fields, a shelter with restrooms, a lighted walkway, and four newer pickleball courts with a shaded parking area, benches and picnic tables.

Across the city on the east side, Zablocki Park is the ballfield-and-golf version of a neighborhood park.

Zablocki Park

Zablocki Park at 3717 W Howard Ave has baseball fields, open space used for soccer practice, a playground for younger children and a par-3 golf course, with plenty of parking.

One detail that confuses first-timers: the restrooms are inside the Philippine Cultural & Civic Center building, which shares the park's address.

The par-3 course itself, Zablocki Park Golf Course, has artificial-turf greens, and a round often takes under 45 minutes, which makes it a good first course for kids.

A few more neighborhood parks cover specific needs. Don Almquist Park at 4425 S Honey Creek Dr has separate playground areas for different ages, plus covered picnic tables.

For basketball, Barnard Park at 3300 W Barnard Ave has courts that host full-court pickup games through the summer, and open fields for running around.

For shade and quiet, Lavies Park at 4587 S 72nd St is tucked away in the neighborhood, with a children's play area under the trees.

Next to the library and the police station, Bicentennial Park at 5320 W Layton Ave sits between the Law Enforcement Center, Fire Station #1 and the library, with restrooms, bubblers (Wisconsin for drinking fountains) and a covered picnic area.

Tennis players have two sets of lighted courts. Greenfield High School at 4800 S 60th St has eight outdoor hard courts lit for play after dark.

On the far west side, Whitnall High School on S 116th St also has eight lighted hard courts, open to the public.

Is Greenfield Park in Greenfield?

No. Greenfield Park is a Milwaukee County park in West Allis, about 5.7 miles northwest of Konkel Park, and the shared name sends a lot of searches to the wrong city.

It's much bigger than any park in Greenfield. Milwaukee County bought the land in 1921, and by the mid-1930s it covered 278 acres along the western county line. It has a lake, water recreation areas and a golf course that opened in 1923 and was updated in 2015.

The Greenfield Park Golf Course at 12035 W Greenfield Ave is a par-69 course with a pro shop, a clubhouse restaurant and equipment rentals, and a bike trail connects it to the rest of the park.

The golf course's address, on Greenfield Avenue in the city of West Allis, adds to the confusion.

Bigger parks next door

Whitnall Park is about 3.5 miles southwest of Konkel Park, and it's the place for a longer outdoor day, with Boerner Botanical Gardens inside it and Wehr Nature Center on its edge.

At Whitnall Park, wooded walking trails, a golf course, botanical gardens and a nature center share one county park, open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Inside the park, Boerner Botanical Gardens runs 11 specialty gardens, including a rose garden and a bog walk, about 3 miles southwest of Konkel. Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The park's nature center, Wehr Nature Center, is about 3.6 miles southwest, with trails, wildlife and education programs, open 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Whitnall's gardens sit in the village of Hales Corners, one of the small municipalities that ring Greenfield's southwest edge.

Wehr's address is in the city of Franklin, so a single visit to the county park can cross two town lines before you're back in Greenfield.

On a rainy day, trade the parks for indoor options for a rainy Greenfield day, from indoor mini golf to a pizza hall with a theatre organ.