Piqua – Forests, River Trails and City History

Piqua offers various ways to experience nature and history: a moist beech-maple forest with a loop trail, parks along the Great Miami River, and places where the city’s past is visible. When planning your trip, you can decide whether to focus on walks and wildlife watching, river trails or historical discoveries.

Forest Trails and City Parks

Garbry Big Woods Sanctuary is a 100-acre park with an undisturbed moist beech-maple forest. Visitors can enjoy walks and wildlife watching there. A 0.7-mile loop trail follows a boardwalk. The stated trail length and route over the boardwalk give you specific points of reference if you’d like to combine a stay with nature watching and a loop walk.

The city’s broader park system also offers various opportunities for outdoor activities: Piqua’s 17 city parks cover nearly 275 acres. The listed amenities include fishing canals and hiking and biking trails. If you’d like to include these experiences in your trip, you can decide which parks and trails interest you based on your destinations.

River Landscape and Traces of the Canal

The “River’s Edge” section of Linear Park runs along the Great Miami River and follows the former Miami-Erie Canal in some places. The description of the trail therefore brings together the present-day river and the canal’s historic route. The former canal belongs to the past; the trail follows it only in some places.

Lock 9 Park is also located on the banks of the Great Miami River, at the intersection of the Great Miami River Trail and the Ohio-to-Indiana Trail. The park contains the remains of Lock 9 on the Miami & Erie Canal. Those interested in the history of waterways will find a specific historical connection here; at the same time, as a riverside location, the park is a useful point of reference for the trails mentioned.

Goodrich Giles Park is a 9-acre recreation area on South Main Street along the Great Miami River Trail. Its name recalls Goodrich Giles, a formerly enslaved man and Civil War veteran who became Piqua’s first prominent Black businessman. The park thus connects the present-day name of a recreational area with the history of a person from Piqua.

Historic Sites and City History

The Piqua-Caldwell Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 11, 1985. A self-guided walking tour of the district uses historic markers and QR codes to provide information about individual buildings. This gives you a way to explore the houses and their history on your own walk, rather than relying only on an overview of the district.

McCulloch Square is located between Market Street and High Street in downtown Piqua, directly in front of the historic Fort Piqua Plaza. The square has a pavilion and monuments commemorating prominent residents. Along with the walk through the Historic District, this place is particularly suited to travelers interested in Piqua’s history and how it is remembered in public spaces.

Museum and Independent Research

The John Scott Garbry Museum includes an interactive recreation of a town square with shops and craft demonstrations from the 19th century. It is open year-round by appointment and open to the public on the third Sunday in October. If you’re planning a museum visit, take these different access arrangements into account.

For more in-depth interests, the Local History and Genealogy Department of the Piqua Public Library offers historical research aids and original historical documents. Alongside the museum’s engaging displays, these materials are available to visitors who want to explore local history or family history in greater depth.

When choosing a vacation rental in Piqua, it helps to first decide what you’d like to focus on during your trip: forest and wildlife watching, river trails or city history. Then choose the location of your accommodation based on the places and trails you plan to visit.

For the broader travel overview: Miami County.