-
(Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
City Park, along with the newer Lake Pueblo State Park, occupies part of Charles Goodnight's vast Rock Canyon Ranch. The only remnant of the ranch is the Goodnight Barn (1871), .6 mile west of the intersection of West Highway 96 and Goodnight Avenue, at the west end of the Valco Sand and Gravel plant. This rare early example of masonry construction is built of rough limestone blocks, now under a corrugated metal roof with a pigeon tower. Goodnight, with partner Oliver Loving, blazed the Goodnight-Loving Trail from Texas through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, roughly along the route of today's I-25. During the 1860s and 1870s this was a major cattle trail.
City Park encompasses 161.5 acres. The WPA built many of the granite retaining walls and buildings such as the golf course clubhouse (1938), the adobe Girls' Recreation Lodge (1940), and the original Pueblo Zoo buildings. The 1985 Zoo Education Building (Hurtig, Gardner and Froelich) has an Aztec flair. The City Park Carousel (1911) (NR), “county fair model number 72” of Charles W. Parker Amusement Devices, Abilene, Kansas, has thirty-six hand-carved, brightly painted horses pulling chariots and a band organ. It was restored in 1985.