Landmark Park

The Wiregrass region takes its name from the wiry native grass that grew beneath the longleaf pines of the Coastal Plain. For generations this was hardscrabble farming country, first cotton, then, after the boll weevil arrived, the peanut that made Dothan the self-styled Peanut Capital of the World. Landmark Park's 1890s farm captures the moment just before that shift, when small family farms worked the land with mules and hand tools.

The farmstead is furnished and run the way it would have been in that decade, with a farmhouse and outbuildings gathered around a barnyard. Costumed interpreters and demonstrations of skills like cane syrup making, blacksmithing, and old-time farm chores give visitors a sense of the labor and rhythm of rural life before machines and electricity reached the countryside.

Beyond the farm, Landmark Park has become a home for historic structures rescued from around the Wiregrass and reassembled on the grounds. Among them are a country church, a one-room schoolhouse, a general store, and a rural post office, each preserving a piece of small-town and country life that might otherwise have been lost.

The park also carries a scientific side. A planetarium and an interpretive center connect the land and sky above the Wiregrass to the human history on the ground, and the park hosts festivals, heritage days, and school programs through the year that fill the old buildings and barnyard with activity.

A network of nature trails and a long elevated boardwalk lead away from the farm into woods and wetland, offering a cool, shaded contrast to the open barnyard. The boardwalk crosses low, wet ground where cypress and hardwoods grow and where frogs, turtles, and wading birds are easy to spot.

The woods support the usual cast of southern Alabama wildlife: white-tailed deer, gray squirrels, songbirds, woodpeckers, and the occasional armadillo rooting through the leaf litter. Interpretive signs along the trails point out the native plants and the pine-woods ecology that once covered this whole corner of the state.

Spring is mild and green, one of the best times to walk the trails and catch the farm in the full swing of planting-season demonstrations. Fall is another favorite, cooler and drier, and the season for harvest events and heritage festivals.

Summer in the Wiregrass is hot and humid, best enjoyed on the shaded boardwalk and in the early hours. Winter is quiet and often mild, with bare trees opening up the woods for birding and cool, clear days that suit a slow wander through the historic farm.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.