Mill Pond Park in Saline

Every city and town has one park that tends to define the best features of the community. In Saline, that would be the Mill Pond Park. When you’re looking for Real Estate in Saline, Michigan, having a great park in town is an important consideration.

To those families with young children, most of us know the park more simply as the ROMP, which is an acronym for Re-create Our Mill Pond park. A number of years ago, civic leaders in Saline organized an effort to build a “super structure” playground for young children at Mill Pond. The ROMP structure has been a hit with my kids over the years! Here’s what it looks like from the sledding hill:

And speaking of a sledding hills, one of the better ones in Saline is located at the northeast corner of the park. From the bottom, here’s what the sledding hill looks like in the spring:

Many of us have our family pets, and the Mill Pond Park accommodates the dog owners in Saline with a “leash free” zone. Here’s what that looks like:

It’s a really large area, and borders the Saline river, so your dog can go for a swim if it’s really warm out. Just watch out for the swans and geese – they bite!

The entire length of Mill Pond park borders the “Mill Pond” area. Back in the 1800s, when Saline was being built, the Saline River was dammed up to create the mill pond. The pond water was used to drive a water wheel at the lumber mill, where area trees were converted to lumber for home building.

One of the other enjoyable activities at ROMP (as I call it) is to take the kids fishing. There are mostly panfish in the pond these days, but occasionally you’ll hook a large carp – and then, hang on!

While you’re at the play structure area, you can shade yourself under the pavilion, which is available for lease for large groups through the city of Saline.

Or, you can simply enjoy a walk around the park, which extends upstream from the mill pond into the Saline river, where you can enjoy the babbling brook.

Each summer, Saline is host to the Celtic festival. Much of the Celtic festival takes place at the Mill Pond park.

The park is also used by the Saline High School Cross Country teams. When you walk around the park and see some of the hills the XC runners have to go up (!!!), it takes your breath away. Thank goodness they’re young when they do those runs!