Welcome to Wolf Run Regional Park
Wolf Run Regional Park consists of almost 260 acres of rolling topography and contiguous open space featuring nearly ten miles of hiking trails, woodlands, a pond and other natural features. Over the years, Rotary Club of Mount Vernon has partnered with the Park District on funding the construction of a fishing pier at the Park Pond and funded the construction of an additional shelter located within the Bark Park.
A nearly two-acre “bark park,” is a fenced area for dogs to run off their leash. The area is next to the Park parking Lot. Please read the bark park rules, (see link below) before entering the bark park.
A small kids bouldering area is featured to boost creativity, problem-solving and agility. Kiwanis, Rotary and the Richard and Arline Landers Foundation provided monies to assist with this project. In 2020, in cooperation with the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, Knox County Foundation, Paragraphs Bookstore and the Knox County Career Center, a Storybook Trail was created in the park. This trail features a popular children’s book title which allows children to read the book in it’s entirety as they enjoy a walk through the park. The titles are switched quarterly for continued community engagement. Another educational tool is the “Litter Trail”. This concept was created through a grant awarded to the Knox County Recycling and Litter Prevention. The trail features small sites that educate trail users the time it takes for an item to decompose such as plastic or aluminum cans. The park is also the site of a few geocaches for those individuals interested in an adventurous treasure hunt.
Wolf Run serves as a convenient place to relax and take in the beauty of the Kokosing River valley. Of note is the 30- acre Knox Woods State Nature Preserve, contained within the park’s boundary. The Park as well as the adjacent Marshall Meadow has an abundance of plant life and wildflowers. In 2021, a group of volunteers spent countless hours to compile a plant survey. This survey highlights the baseline data for the presence of forbs, (herbaceous flowering plants) that are not graminoids, within selected parks of our Park District. The project further determined flowering time for each identified species. During the 2021 growing season, surveyors identified a total of 320 distinct species forbs. Please view the summary link below for further information and highlights of the 2021 project.
The state endangered Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a small woodpecker, utilizes wooded habitat in the park for foraging and shelter. Granite boulders carried by Ohio’s last ice age 100,000 years ago dot the landscape. Small streams that comprise the headwaters of Wolf Run, which flows to the Kokosing River, grace the landscape with soothing sounds of cascading water.
Archers, by permit-only, assist the Park District with our deer management program, during Ohio’s white-tailed deer archery season. Archery participants pursue their sport at Wolf Run Regional Park throughout the week (including weekends) during archery season which typically runs from the end of September through the beginning of February. Gun hunting is prohibited at the park.
Over the years, the Knox County Park District has worked with numerous boy scouts on community service projects to earn their Eagle Scout honor. The Wolf Run Park has had seen numerous improvements to the park from the service of our scouts. We thank each one of them for their dedication to our park systems. We invite you to come and visit Wolf Run Regional Park to hike, fish and observe nature.