Ashley Park

Open space has long been central to community life, known in Colonial America and for centuries across Europe as village greens or commons where people gathered for festivals, sold farm goods, and held public events. In Bryant, this open space served as the community's village green as far back as the 1920s, when it was open fields used for baseball and the Bryant Community Fair. In the 1950s, when the fields were to be sold, Bryant's first mayor, Conway Ashley, together with Dean Boswell, Sr., Leon H. Sullivan, and Glenn Rapier, bought the land and donated it to the city because the community valued it so highly. It became Bryant's first park and was named for Conway Ashley. In 1958, it hosted the city's first folk festival, and Fourth of July and political events have continued there. Tennis courts, a wading pool, and a youth center were later added, Bryant High School's first football games were played there, and it served as the home field for Bryant's first American Legion baseball team. Purchased more than 70 years ago, the land now includes city offices and modern baseball fields and remains a center of community activity.

Bryant, Arkansas · United States