Darby Creek Metro Park Nature Center

About this museum

Seven thousand acres of forest, prairie, and wetland within twenty minutes of downtown Columbus - the numbers sound improbable until you stand on the boardwalk at Battelle Darby Creek and watch a great egret lift from the marsh while a bison herd grazes in the middle distance. This is what the Darby Creek Metro Park Nature Center makes possible: genuine contact with a landscape that has been restored, over decades of careful work, from degraded agricultural land into one of the most ecologically significant natural areas in the Midwest.The nature center at Battelle Darby Creek serves as both introduction and anchor for a park system that stretches along thirteen miles of Big and Little Darby Creek - rivers that carry the designation of State and National Scenic Rivers, protecting them from the development pressures that have compromised most of Ohio's waterways. The bison reintroduction program is the park's most dramatic statement of ecological ambition: these animals were part of the original prairie fauna of this region, and their return to the landscape within enclosed pastures visible from public trails creates an encounter that no other metro park system in Ohio can offer.The center's exhibits explain the hydrology, ecology, and restoration history of the park with clarity and depth, and seasonal programming brings in additional interpretive depth on topics ranging from migratory birds to native prairie plant identification. The trail network extending from the center provides access to every major habitat type in the park.With a 4.8 rating from 975 visitors, the Darby Creek Metro Park Nature Center earns sustained enthusiasm from a large and diverse audience. Admission is completely free. Hours run daily - Monday through Sunday from 9AM to 6PM. Located in Galloway, Ohio, within the Metro Parks system and accessible from I - 270. More information at metroparks.net - a remarkable natural resource that costs nothing to explore.