Pennypack Park

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Pennypack Park in Fox Chase

Pennypack Park is a part of Philadelphia's Fairmount Park system that is located in Northeast Philadelphia in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It was established in 1905 by ordinance of the City of Philadelphia. The park covers approximately 1,600 acres (6 km²) and is composed of woodlands, meadows and wetlands. The banks of the Pennypack Creek runs through the park from Pine Road all the way to the Delaware River. The park provides playgrounds, hiking and bike trails as well as bridle paths for horse back riding. An adjunct to the Park is the Pennypack Environmental Center on Verree Road.

More than 150 species of nesting and migrating birds can be seen in the park, such as the tiny Ruby-throated Hummingbird, the Great Blue Heron, Warblers, the Pileated Woodpecker, several kinds of seabirds, ducks, geese, hawks, Great Horned Owls and the little Screech Owl to name only a few. Pennypack Park is famous for its large, scattered deer herd but is home to a large variety of mammals, including several kinds of bat, the Red and Gray Fox, rabbits, chipmunks, mice, muskrats, woodchucks, raccoons, skunks, opossum and weasels. The park is home to many reptile species including several kinds of snakes, turtles, frogs, the common toad and several kinds of salamanders.^[1]

Many historic structures are still intact throughout Pennypack Park. Built in 1697, the King's Highway Bridge at Frankford Avenue is one of the oldest stone bridges still in use in the United States.^[2] The Pennepack Baptist Church, another of the Park's historic sites, was built in 1688. The Verree House on Verree Road was the site of a raid by British troops during the Revolutionary War. The trained eye can rediscover abandoned railroad grades, remnants of early mills, mill races and other reminders that generations of mankind have gathered in the "Green Heart" of Northeast Philadelphia.