Pekin: Parks, Family Experiences, and History

Pekin combines diverse park experiences with family-oriented activities and remarkable traces of the city’s history. Anyone looking to plan a trip involving outdoor activities, water-based experiences, and culture will find a variety of options here for organizing each day. When choosing accommodation in Pekin, it is therefore worth deciding on your priorities first: Should your stay focus primarily on nature and park days, or should historical discoveries and shared activities take center stage?

Parks and Trails for Active Days

The Pekin Park Bike Trail is 4.3 miles long. It begins at Allentown Road and ends at Riverfront Park and Miller Park. The clearly designated route is an option for anyone who would like to include a longer trail in their plans. For a shorter loop, there is the lagoon in Pekin Park: an approximately half-mile loop trail runs there and is accessible to wheelchairs. This accommodates different ideas of what a park visit can be without making the two trails feel like the same experience.

The size of the park landscape shapes Pekin’s character. The Pekin Park District has nine community parks, seven neighborhood parks, and more than 2,277 acres of land. For your trip planning, this primarily means a wide range of designated park areas to choose from. Boating on the Lagoon offers paddleboat rides on the lagoon at Mineral Springs Park. The same park is also home to Magic Dragon Mini Golf, an 18-hole course. Anyone who wants to plan a day with water activities differently from a day of games and competition can deliberately schedule these offerings separately.

Family Experiences with Different Focuses

DragonLand adds a ground-level play and entry area, two water slides, a dragon slide, and a sand and water play area to the offerings. Together with the paddleboat rides and mini golf, these create several specific ideas for shared activities. The choice of a vacation apartment or vacation home can be guided by your preferred travel pace: Some days can be organized around a single activity, while others can combine several interests. What matters is which experiences your travel group actually wants to include.

Historical Traces in Pekin

The city’s history also offers destinations in their own right. The St. Louis, Peoria, and Northern Railroad Depot in Pekin was built in 1898 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The Pekin Federal Building, also known as the Old Post Office, was built in 1906 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Each date belongs to its respective building and highlights different historical periods.

In June 1862, the first meeting of the Union League of America was organized at a location in downtown Pekin. A memorial stone in Legins-Costley Park on Court Street in downtown Pekin honors Nance Legins-Costley as the first enslaved person emancipated with the help of Abraham Lincoln. The Marigold Festival adds to this historical picture, with its tradition continuing every September through Art in the Park, the Marigold Parade, and other activities.

Another landmark is the house built for Carl Herget in 1912. Herget was a businessman and member of one of Pekin’s most prominent families; the building was designed by the architectural firm Hewitt & Emerson in the Classical Revival style. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. When choosing your accommodation, you can therefore weigh a stay focused on parks and activities against a trip with a stronger interest in Pekin’s history. For additional destinations in the surrounding area, you can also find Tremont, Morton, and East Peoria.

For the broader travel overview: Tazewell County.