Pack a picnic and explore Stubbs Park in Downtown Dublin featuring picnic tables, amphitheater, creek with bridge, lighted basketball and tennis & pickleball courts, a skate park, and lush landscaping.
History Comes Alive
Built in 1909 through a bond election (an earlier version of SPLOST), Stubbs Park is located at the heart of the Dublin community. Designed by famed horticulturist Prosper Julius Berckmans of Augusta, whose gardens later became the Augusta National Golf Club, the original design of Stubbs had a lake and many fountains. Berckmans and Col. John M. Stubbs of Dublin served together on the board of the Georgia Horticulture Society, and began designing the gardens surrounding Col. Stubbs home. Stubbs planned to leave a portion of these lands to the City of Dublin upon his death. On October 10, 1908, Stubbs’ family donated the land between North Church and North Calhoun Streets to the City and P. J. Berkman’s son, Robert set to work using his father’s original designs of the garden. The ten acre public park was completed in May, 1909. Stubbs Park has grown with the times. In the 1930’s, families embraced Stubbs Park, and began constructing homes on the hills surrounding the park and today, these houses are some of Dublin’s finest examples of Craftsman and Cape Cod architecture. In 1956, the Dublin Civitan Club installed one of Georgia’s first desegregated public swimming pools, and until the early 2000’s, Stubbs hosted the Dublin St. Patrick’s Arts and Crafts Festival. Sourced in part from a blog by Scott Thompson, Pieces of Our Past.
Stubbs Park Today
When the Arts and Crafts Festival outgrew Stubbs Park, the park slipped from local view, but in the past few years, a new generation of visitors, new residents, and native Dubliners have embraced Stubbs Park as a natural escape. In June of 2016 and 2022, Stubbs hosted over 1000 bicyclists for two days and three nights as a stopover during Bicycle Ride Across Georgia. In an effort to revitalize Stubbs to its former glory as a gathering place for locals and a venue for cultural events, a grass roots Friends of Stubbs Park has been organized to focus on revitalization efforts.
