Wilderness Park in southwest Lincoln, Nebraska, is the city’s largest natural park, spanning 1,472 acres of wooded floodplain, prairie, trails, and wetlands shaped by Salt Creek and nearby streams. Beneath this landscape lies a long history of industry and recreation, from an 1866 corn mill and Phillip Cooper’s ice pond to Lincoln Park, Electric Park, Camp Minis-Kuya, and the neighboring resort community of Epworth Park. Flooding in 1935 destroyed most of Epworth Park, and later public acquisition of these lands created the modern park. Today it is valued for extensive trails, wildlife, and surviving traces of its earlier development.