New 186-acre MetroPark to open in Hanover this fall

A new 186-acre MetroPark called Davidson Woods, off Hogue Road in Hanover Township, will finally be fully open to the public this fall after the property was purchased nearly 20 years ago.

MetroParks of Butler County, a land management conservancy agency that keeps numerous green spaces and historical sites in the area, purchased the property in 2007 from the Davidson family with a $938,437 Clean Ohio grant awarded through the Ohio Public Works Commission in 2006. The grant required a local match from MetroParks of $511, 363, bringing the total purchase price to $1,449,800.

Since then, MetroParks received an additional $450,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding awarded by the Butler County Commissioners in 2022 and $369,848 from another Clean Ohio grant in 2023.

Katie Ely-Wood, communications manager for MetroParks, said of Davidson Woods coming to fruition, “Opening up a park is a really slow process.”

“In order to get a park open, it takes a long time to get park planning done, making sure all of the contractors are available and on schedule in order to do kind of the basic things that the public requires in order to be able to access a park,” Ely-Wood said, adding this includes paving driveways and parking lots, marking trailheads and cutting trails, and placing interpretative signage, mapping and kiosks.

“We’re excited to be at the finish line,” Ely-Wood said.

Davidson Woods is part of the larger Southwest Ohio region that Myaamiaki, or the Myaamia people, and the Shawnee people called home before their forced removal by American colonists following the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, according to Ely-Wood.

In 1809, part of the land now known as Davidson Woods was acquired by Colonel Matthew Hueston, whose family was the namesake of the nearby Hueston Woods State Park. His descendants and their families, including the Davidson’s, owned the land until it was purchased from Isabelle Davidson by MetroParks, according to Ely-Wood.

According to Ely-Wood, the land was passed down through female relatives, and each woman who inherited the property “made a diligence not to develop it and not to do a lot of agriculture on this land.”

“I think they were all very conservation-minded, which really speaks to the quality of the forest that’s in Davidson Woods now,” Ely-Wood said.

Ely-Wood said the park has remained closed to the public over the years, and hasn't been used for much beyond some occasional programming, including MetroParks’ bow-hunting program. She said construction on the park started in late 2025-early 2026, including some tree clearing to make way for a driveway and parking lot.

Throughout this year, it has started to transform into something the public would more closely recognize as a park, Ely-Wood said. Construction on the site depends on weather, but MetroParks hopes to open Davidson Woods by late October or early November.

The new park will include an accessible trail into Davidson Woods and up to a scenic overlook of Four Mile Creek, natural hiking trails and Four Mile Creek access. Ely-Wood said park guests can use the space for hiking, fishing and creeking, but four-wheelers and mountain biking will not be permitted.

“It’s primarily going to be an escape from the business of the outside world,” Ely-Wood said. “I think that’s what we’re most excited about offering to the public is really (the opportunity of) stepping back into the beautiful, secluded, natural environment. We really hope people take advantage of it.”

Much of the wooded areas in Butler County have been transformed into farmland and eventually modern cities, Ely-Wood said, but Davidson Woods remains “untouched” by modern agriculture and progression, save for the remnants of an old house, leaving the land with one of the largest remaining mature forests in the county.

The forest has two keystone species – shagbark hickories and maple trees – which thrive on the property and host a healthy ecosystem of native plants, insects and mammals, Ely-Wood said. 

“There’s all kinds of other beings that rely on these keystone species to be really healthy and abundant, and we’re really lucky to have that in the forest at Davidson,” Ely-Wood said.

In the summer and fall of 2023, MetroParks posted online surveys and hosted public meetings in Hanover Township for residents to provide feedback on what they wanted to see at the park. According to Ely-Wood, the majority of the comments were to keep the park natural.

“The public was very clear in the feedback they gave, which was, ‘We want this park to be a return to nature. We don’t want to see a lot of developed elements in this park,’” she recalled from the meetings, adding the public made clear it did not want athletic fields, picnic shelters or playgrounds at the park.

“It’s a really cool space, and the fact that it’s one of the last forests in Butler County to really remain untouched by agriculture … is pretty rare,” Ely-Wood said. “When you step into this park, it’s really going to feel almost like you’re stepping back into kind of a bigger, green old-growth forest.”

Ely-Wood said the new park will give visitors a kind of “state park experience” by immersing them in the woods and the aquatic environment at the creek.

“If you like hiking, if you like being in a quiet, natural environment, if you like just spending a little bit of time in the woods, it’s going to be a fantastic park for you to visit,” she said.

While MetroParks doesn’t normally open parks the size of Davidson Woods, Ely-Wood said, it’s “excited” to open such a large, contiguous area to the public. MetroParks also owns the property across the street from Davidson Woods called “Hueston Farm,” although Ely-Wood said that will remain closed to the public for now, and there aren’t currently any plans to open it.

Ely-Wood said there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Davidson Woods for the public to attend once it is complete, although that date is currently undecided.