place

Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

1938 establishments in AlabamaDecatur, AlabamaDecatur metropolitan area, AlabamaHuntsville-Decatur, AL Combined Statistical AreaIUCN Category IV
Landforms of Limestone County, AlabamaLandforms of Madison County, AlabamaLandforms of Morgan County, AlabamaNational Wildlife Refuges in AlabamaNature centers in AlabamaProtected areas established in 1938Protected areas of Limestone County, AlabamaProtected areas of Madison County, AlabamaProtected areas of Morgan County, AlabamaTennessee RiverWetlands of Alabama

The Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge is a 35,000-acre (142 km2) national wildlife refuge (NWR) located along the Tennessee River near Decatur, Alabama. Named after Major General Joseph Wheeler, it was established to provide a habitat for wintering and migrating birds in the Eastern United States. Of the 35,000 acres of the refuge, about 4,085 acres (16.5 km2) are located within Redstone Arsenal. Around 1,500 acres (6 km2) of the Redstone Arsenal land are administered by the Marshall Space Flight Center. The facility has a 16-person staff with a $1,694,000 annual budget. Wheeler NWR is charged with the administration of four other NWRs, including Fern Cave, Key Cave, Sauta Cave and Watercress Darter National Wildlife Refuges. Until recently, Wheeler NWR also administered the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge (now administered by the Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge
Refuge Headquarters Road, Decatur

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Wheeler National Wildlife RefugeContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 34.557777777778 ° E -86.951666666667 °
placeShow on map

Address

Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters

Refuge Headquarters Road
35603 Decatur
Alabama, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

Share experience

Nearby Places

Delano Park
Delano Park

The Delano Park, operated by the Decatur Parks and Recreation Board, is the oldest park in the city of Decatur, Alabama. It was created in 1887, as part of a master plan to "re-invent" the City of Decatur, then New Decatur. The city created the "Decatur Land Improvement and Furnace Company" for this specific purpose. The company employed a landscape architect by the name of Nathan Franklin Barrett to design a whole new city that had been ravaged by a yellow fever epidemic and the Civil War. The park was designed to be the focal point of the entire plan. The park, named after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's mother, was dedicated in the 1930s by Roosevelt himself and later named in her honor as part of a newspaper contest, which sought to commemorate his vision for municipal parks across America. The land was donated to the city of Albany as part of the New Deal, which included a large plan to develop the poverty-ridden city. The park remained mostly a solitary attraction on the fringe of downtown as the only large park in town during that era. This changed in the mid-1950s when the new Decatur High School constructed a new school building to replace an overcrowding "Riverside" High School building. The far eastern end once consisted of a swimming pool called the "Blue Haven". This pool has since been filled in, and the Decatur High marching band now uses a practice field that was created over the former swimming area. The middle portion of the park contains a children's playground, the new "Splash Pad", and a ditch with a concrete bridge donated to the park. The bridge was moved in the 1930s from Ferry Street to accentuate the beauty of the park and has been a favorite location for young and old alike ever since.