A 54-acre plot of land in Walton, donated by the late Dr. O’dell Owens — who served as the Hamilton County coroner and later the president of Cincinnati State and Technical and Community College — will be converted into a park and fire training facility called Dr. O’dell Owens Park.
“He was larger than life,” Walton Mayor Gabe Brown said while giving LINK nky a tour of the land and discussing its history and future.
The city and Dr. Owens finalized the donation deal in December of 2020. Owens and Brown met, in a fortuitous turn of events, in a crowded elevator at a leadership event at Great American Ballpark about five years ago.
“He’s like, ‘The mayor of Walton?’ He said, ‘I own a piece of property in Walton.’ He’s like, “I’d like to talk to you,’ ” Brown recalled.
The land originally served as Walton’s water reservoir, and Owens had purchased the land with the hopes of developing it about 20 years before he met Mayor Brown at the Reds stadium. The development ambitions didn’t work out, and Owens and his family ended up not visiting the land much at all, even though the property sported a large house and a lake.
At first, Owens had tried to sell the land to the city, but Brown said that the arrangement changed as the two men got to know each other and eventually became friends.
“We hit it off really well,” Brown said. “We went to Frisch’s… We enjoyed a nice breakfast buffet. And we did that–I don’t know–four, five, six, seven times.”
“He called me about the end of November 2020,” Brown added. “He was like, ‘Mayor, I’ll tell you what,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to sell you the lake anymore… I want to give it to y’all.’ ”
Owens insisted the deal be completed by the end of the year. City council voted to accept the donation on Dec. 29, 2020 and Owens officially signed the land over to the city two days later.
Dr. Owens passed away in 2022 at the age of 74, and since the donation, the city of Walton has been preparing the property for public use.
A biologist from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife analyzed the lake and, by Brown’s telling, found it to be “the most out of whack ecosystem he had ever seen in his in his career.” The water was teeming with large, aggressive sunfish that would overwhelm the nests of other species ideal for fishing, such as bass.
The department used chemicals derived from legumes to cull the sunfish population by depriving them of oxygen. The chemicals are not harmful to humans. Since then the department has restocked the lake with bluegill and catfish. As the temperatures warm-up, they also plan to stock the lake with bass and eventually trout, although Brown predicts that won’t happen until after the park has opened.
“They’re great for kids to come fish,” Brown said of the trout. “They’re easy to fish, taste good and, you know, you can catch them at times when you couldn’t catch bass and other fish.”
In addition, the park will feature walking trails and pavilions for events. There has also been discussion among city council members to take advantage of the land’s fertile soil to build community gardens or plant fruit trees, but no firm decisions had been made when LINK nky spoke with Brown.
Finally, the city will build a fire training facility with a classroom, an area to practice fire vehicle maneuvering and a burn building on the southeast end of the property.
The burn building will be the focus of the training facility, as it will allow cadets to train in live conditions. Constructed from repurposed steel shipping containers, the structure will be able to be configured for a variety of training scenarios. Trainers can start fires in the base of the building so that trainees can then enter the structure to practice moving around in smokey conditions, honing their rescue, navigation and ladder skills. The Hebron Fire Department uses a similar structure.
The city’s fire board and city council have already approved construction of the facility and are in the process of drawing up legal paperwork, according to Walton Fire Chief Joey Vest. The fire department is seeking grant funding for the facility’s construction.
Chief Vest expressed his gratitude to city staff and elected officials for their willingness to work with the fire department in a phone call with LINK nky.
Mayor Brown projects that the park will be open to the public sometime in 2025.