McHenry Park — Attraction in Des Moines

This is the neighborhood Park I grew up with. I miss the lazy summers of the early 1970's there where I could go to the park and ride the slide, merry-go-round, swings and climb the jungle gym. There were young park attendants in the shelter by the wading pool who would let you borrow different board games or even do arts, crafts and other organized park activities. Over time changes came along, eliminating some of the "old school" playground equipment. The past few years a lot of good additions have been made, modernizing the park. There is now a beautiful view of the lagoon and part of the downtown skyline just south of the park. Keep improving and add a few more features to this reimagined park. And, thank you to the park supporters and City of Des Moines for investing and believing this park-I can still enjoy it today at the age of 54. And I want to add one more favorite memory at the park, that being the 7 am...

This park is designed beautifully! The splash pad is wonderful for all ages, with smaller sprayers in some area for little ones and larger sprayers and things to climb for bigger kids. The little stream for play, from the splash pad runoff, is genius and so fun! With shelters restrooms, swings, and a natural play area, there is a little something for everyone here! I can only come up with 2 complaints. The restrooms could use some hooks or a shelf, especially since we had to change in there. Setting things on the floor made me cringe bigtime but was basically unavoidable. And my biggest problem: the bees and wasps are out of control! The little house on the natural playground is basically a giant bee hive, and the wasps and mud daubers have nests near the little stream. They didn't bother us, and I love seeing all the pollinators on the flowers, but certainly there's a way to encourage them to...

A mid-sized park with a good variety of play equipment, McHenry Park lacks the typical slides, stairs, obstacles playground. However, it makes up for this with its splashpad area, which extends into a small stream kids can play in that leads around into a small, shallow pond that then feeds back into the splash pad.

There are 2 shelters here, both outdoors, and an indoor bathroom area. This bathroom has been closed on some occasions, as I believe that it gets regularly vandalized, but is fairly good for a park bathroom when open.

All parking is street side, which limits how much space there is to park a car nearby, but unless there is a very large event this tends to be no real issue. Plus, the street isn't usually too busy, so even if you have to park on the other side, it's not too difficult to cross...