Montgomery has reason to celebrate… a great new park in town.
According to Mayor Greg Ingram, federal and state grants made this possible. Thanks to the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation, Kanawha County Commission, Fayette County Commission, Coal Heritage Foundation, Charleston Area Medical Center — and many others.
Ingram says it took writing grants to build the fishing pier and fix the lower-level fishing deck.
“We’re fortunate, not only do we have this nice park, but it’s right in the middle of God’s beauty — and you can’t beat this area,” he says. “We’re on the banks of the Kanawha River, with the beautiful God’s mountains behind this. And, there’s been a lot of people out using the park already. It’s just been fantastic.”
According to the mayor, the cost went up three times.
“We started out with a $200,000 fishing pier, and it was $600,000 at that point,” said Ingram. “By the time we were done, it was even more than that. A project that has been a process, a lot of people involved.”
The mayor says when tech left it took a lot of the city’s resources. What they do now takes hard work.
The park will provide a place for the kids to play, act as a meeting center and the city had no public access to fishing until now. There’s also more to look forward to.
“We have a splash park that’s coming. We have a community event center that we’re gonna build on Ferry Street,” said Ingram. “It’s taken us a lot of time to tear down some of the old, blighted little buildings here in Montgomery, and now we’re starting to build back.”
All the tables and chairs you see out there were donated by individuals.
“Several chairs here that have name tags on them, the people that donated. They bought the benches and put those out here,” the mayor said.
There are many facets to the park.
“Nice pavilion. We can have events. If it does rain we can get in and out of the rain. So this is just step one,” said Ingram. “Many other improvements are gonna be rolled out here in the next two years I would say.”
