St. Patrick's County Park

The county frame; opened 1978

The county's largest: The largest trail system near the city is the county's, on the city's northern edge. St. Patrick's County Park — county ground, printed as county — spans, in the county parks department's own trail-map words, "nearly 400 acres and offers approximately 6 miles of hiking trails through wooded areas, fields, and along the St. Joseph River," at 50651 Laurel Road, north of Auten Road, bordered by the river to the west and the Michigan state line to the north; the department's park listing fixes the acreage at 398. The ground was a working farm of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, producing crops and livestock for Saint Mary's College, and its barns remain — the Red Barn among the largest wooden barns in northern Indiana and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The park opened in 1978, and the county's map preserves the gesture that marked it: at the park's north end, evergreens planted that year spell out "St. Patrick's," a living sign that "pays tribute to the historic pine trees at Bendix Woods County Park that spell 'Studebaker.'" The named trails on the county's map run from the River Ridge Trail and Horsetail Trace along the river to the Manion Canyon Loop, Cabin Walk, White Pine Loop, Oak Tree Trail, and the numbered loops of the interior — Milkweed Loop at 0.56 of a mile, the letters trails and pond loops at their mapped fractions — and the map states the rules whole: bicycles, horses, and motorized vehicles are not allowed on the trails, and in winter there are separate trails for skiing and hiking, the park grooming cross-country ski trails with rentals available, alongside snow tubing and snowshoeing. The same county map marks the park as part of the Indiana-Michigan River Valley Trail — the corridor's west-bank ground, facing the LaSalle Trail across the river.

Sources:

1. St. Joseph County Parks, St. Patrick's County Park trail map (the nearly-400 acres, the approximately six miles of trails, the Holy Cross farm, the Red Barn, the 1978 sign planting, the trail names and distances, the trail rules, the winter program, the River Valley Trail marking).
2. St. Joseph County Parks, St. Patrick's County Park page (the 398 acres; the river frontage; the Indiana Birding Trail destination; the university's Linked Experimental Ecosystem Facility in the park).