Friends Group Envisioned for New Rock River Heritage Park

The park is located at 5801 N. River Road. The meeting will be held in the main dining hall at the end of the paved road leading into the park.

“A friends group is made up of volunteers with a special interest in helping to clean up, fundraise and keep the park in the shape,” Rock County Parks Manager John Traynor said.

Traynor said numerous parks in Rock County have friend groups. Two of the biggest are the Friends of Beckman Mill, Inc. in Beloit and Friends of Carver-Roehl park in Clinton.

The 178-acre Rock River Heritage Park is on Janesville’s northwest side, on the eastern bank of the Rock River. It was originally created in 1946 as an outdoor recreation area for camping and education for the Boy Scouts.

In 2021, after 75 years of operating it as a Scout camp, the Glacier’s Edge Council, a southern Wisconsin chapter of the Boy Scouts of America, put the site up for sale.

Among other projects, county crews have since filled in an aging swimming pool that the Boy Scouts said leaked and needed expensive fixes.

County crews and volunteers continue to clean up brush along trails and are removing some of the aging wood-frame lodges, bunkhouses and pit toilets from the park’s days as a year-round camp.

This coming year, Traynor said in a Gazette article in January, crews and volunteers plan to build a playground somewhere in the heart of the park and to possibly erect a memorial paid for by a private fundraising effort.

As the county grooms Rock River Heritage Park for future use, its likely centerpiece will be Allen Dining Hall — a large, open-concept hall with a kitchen, walk-in freezer and fireplace.

Traynor said when the county purchased the park site, Allen Dining Hall was in need of a lot of updates. The Rock County Parks Department has limited funds and limited staff, he said, so having a dedicated group of volunteers to help with those updates and to help keep the park maintained in general, would be beneficial.

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