As spring slowly creeps back into town, and the flowers and trees start to bloom, it’s the perfect time to get out and take a hike on one (or several) of our outstanding Webster trails. Some of the most beautiful of those trails, and most interesting from a historical perspective, are the ones that wind through the Four Mile Creek Preserve at the corner of Lake and Phillips roads.

Scattered along the Four Mile Creek trails are seven rusted-out old cars, including a 1949 Nash Ambassador Custom Airflyte, a 1950 Chevrolet Deluxe Bel Air, a 1956 Nash Rambler and others. They tell of a day when the parkland was just farmers’ fields and kids would use the area for joyrides. 

According to Dennis Kuhn, the Friends of Webster Trails’ resident Cars along the Creek expert,  

The cars were driven onto the property from Lake Road across a bridge that accessed farmland where the cars were last driven. It seems that some local youths decided to create a racetrack somewhat off the beaten path to have some fun cavorting around the open fields that were available at the time. If you traverse the land as it is now, you’ll have to use your imagination to see a relatively treeless landscape that existed sometime in the nineteen fifties or early sixties.

Nevertheless, the youths of the day had a ton of fun going around in circles until they ran out of gas or had a flat tire or wrecked the transmission.

So take a hike one of these spring days along the trails at Four Mile Creek Preserve, and enjoy a fascinating walk back through Webster history. You can read more about these and all of Webster’s trails at the Friends of Webster Trails website, webstertrails.org. 

Discover more fascinating bits of local history at the Webster Museum, 18 Lapham Park in the Village of Webster. It’s open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Visit the website at webstermuseum.org.

Missy Rosenberry
Webster Community Blogger

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