#7 Cannon Hill Park

Written on

July 3, 2020

in

Spokane's Best Parks -

Cannon Hill Park is perhaps the most picturesque in Spokane. Meandering meadows, stone-built footbridges, and a rich canopy of deciduous trees create a scene fit a for a La Grande Jatte painting.

If Manito Park is the heart of the South Hill, Cannon Hill Park is the soul. Once a brick quarry, when the clay was mined out in the early 1900s, the famed Olmsted Brothers designed the rolling meadows and duck pond seamlessly into the surrounding neighborhood. Today, Cannon Hill Park serves as one of Spokane’s post-card scenes. Cannon Hill is the second smallest park on the list of Spokane’s Best Parks – it’s quite manageable to explore the whole thing in less than 45 minutes.

The most significant value of Cannon Hill may not actually be the park itself but the way it is interwoven into its surrounding neighborhoods. The jaunt between Manito Park and Cannon Hill Park is only about five blocks but both are intrinsically woven into the fabric of the South Hill by traditional lush boulevards, detached sidewalks, and a rich canopy of deciduous trees lining the streets in all directions. The diverse array of residential architecture only adds to the neighborhood’s mystique. Hundred-year old mansions, beautiful colonials, and smaller English cottages provide varying price-points for those looking to purchase in the neighborhood. Even the most strident suburban apologists will allow themselves to submit to the charm and character of the neighborhood. Suburban neighborhoods – even those designed with similar urban design standards in mind – provide a paltry display of architectural and urban design characteristics as compared to the Cannon Hill Park neighborhood.