On Friday hundreds attended the opening of a new nature trail and park sponsored by the city, Bert Nash Community Health Center and Outside for a Better Inside.

The park was built on eight acres of the former Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the Pinckney neighborhood. The trail circles a pond at 138 Alabama St. that used to be a clay pit in a mine and brick factory in the late 1800s. After that the pond was part of a private zoo that held bears, a monkey and an alligator.

“This place together with the banks of the Kansas River is where I imagined I was Huckleberry Finn,” said John McGrew, founder of Outside for a Better Inside.

Bert Nash donated the site to Lawrence. The new park is named the Sandra J. Shaw Community Health Park, after longtime Bert Nash director Sandra Shaw, who advocated spending time in nature.

“Here we can encourage activities that promote good mental and physical health and help prevent disease,” McGrew said.

The trail received a $55,000 grant from the Topeka-based Sunflower Foundation and was built by R.D. Johnson Excavating.