No sooner did the bulldozers and graders retreat than wildlife began returning to the 4.3 acre park being constructed on the southeast corner of the campus. A pair of killdeer birds set up housekeeping on a rolling hill behind the Office of Communications building.  At least four eggs were in the couple’s nest.

Dave Millay, director of UALR’s physical plant, cordoned off the hilltop with orange cones to keep park builders away from the nest.

The $650,000 donor-financed park project will restore the approximately 4.5 acre site to its natural state with native trees, rocks, and grasses. The area east of University Plaza was once a site where members of the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations stopped for water at the creek during the forced migration known as the Trail of Tears.

It is the first project in a 47-acre plan to create the Coleman Creek Greenway reaching the full length of capus with lush vegetation, bicycle and walking trails, benches, and bridges.

The Coleman Creek project, described in UALR’s Master Plan, On the Move, calls for the creation of a 47-acre greenway reaching the full length of campus with lush vegetation, bicycle and walking trails, benches, and bridges.

The restoration project will provide an outdoor laboratory for biologists, earth scientists, and hydrologists for teaching and research activities and will unite the campus and tie Coleman Creek to a regional open space system that includes the Fourche Creek Wetlands and War Memorial Park.

Johnnie Chamberlin, a member of the family donating trees and other plants for the first stage of the greenway project, recently published a book on walking trails in and around Little Rock. Once completed, Colemen Creek will be great one.