Update on the old Americana site - we looked at it on Monday, coming home from biking on the south portion of the Great Miami Trail.

On Wednesday, July 10, 2019 at 9:10:29 AM UTC-4, sharondbond wrote:

As of Sunday, July 6, work seemed to have stopped. All of the construction equipment is gone. There are no physical barriers to stop anyone from walking in from the parking lot, but the road is gone. There are some big boulders to prevent vehicles from

entering. The RR track is still there, and the crossing gates look to still be active. I looked in from my car, pulled right up to the edge of the parking lot at the RR gates. There aren't any No Trespassing signs, but I'm not sure what they would do if
they caught you on the property.

There is now a large sign advertising Monroe Bicentennial Commons Phase 1B. On the website for Butler County MetroParks, plans are to connect the north portion of the Great Miami River Trail to the south portion, including through Rentschler Forest, so
it will go through the park. The website says that the connection was planned for 2020-21 but I don't think it's going to be finished this year.

You can't sneak in anymore. Past the RR tracks is a fence and you'd have to climb it. The boulders are gone. There is a large warning sign that these are active tracks.

The lake is there but just as a lake. I did not see anything like a beach. It looks much smaller and may only be a portion of the original lake. The rest of the property is now open grassy field and woods. The old log flume trench has been filled in.

What I originally though was the lake is probably a portion of the river. The lake has completely disappeared from any online mapping services.

At the front of the park near the parking lot there are a few structures. As you look in:

1. Some of the arches are still there - these were the ones that come up to a point at the top. They were around the entrance building, which is gone. What's left are just the now freestanding arches.

All the arches are gone.

2. The roof and support pillars of a round building are just ahead and to your right. I am not sure what this is, because where it is doesn't fit with the old park maps that I find online. One map has something roughly in the same area, as Umbrella 1,

so it may have been a picnic pavilion or food service pavilion.

It's still there, along with another building that I hadn't seen before, almost right next to the RR tracks.

3. There is another root and support pillars to your left. As best as I can figure out, this was the Demolition Derby.

Still there from what I can tell, along with some other buildings that are right along the RR tracks. I think they cleared out a lot of trees and brush so a few things are more noticeable. I'm betting these will be repurposed for the park.

There is now a large round concrete plaza straight in from the gates. I would say it's roughly where the old entrance plaza was, after you got in through the gates. There is a metal roof structure over it. A small round area in front looks like it's
gonna be a fountain, so maybe they are drawing on nostalgia for the old fountains.

The original plans were that the "back" part of the park would be a nature park, and Butler Tech would have the "front" part, with a road connecting through the Butler Tech part. It looks like the road will end now just at the RR tracks. And the road is
now Jerry Couch Blvd. That sucks.

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