Desoto Pool — The new pool facility at facility at DeSoto State Park in Fort Payne. (Alabama State Parks)

DeSoto State Park has unveiled a new pool house + accessibility upgrades around the facility, some of the latest improvements made by Alabama State Parks.

Community and state leaders gather at DeSoto earlier this week to celebrate a ribbon-cutting at the new facility. The upgrades include:

Changing rooms for visitors
Indoor lifeguard area
ADA-compliant walkways

While officials acknowledge that replacing the pool house at DeSoto State Park is much smaller than other large-scale projects, they emphasized it has a major impact on the local area.

“When I became Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources eight years ago, it became immediately evident that we had some outdated facilities at State Parks that were in dire need of replacement. One of those was the pool house right here at DeSoto State Park. We want our State Parks to offer excellent amenities and a first-class experience for all of our visitors, and it’s truly gratifying to see this new building and know it helps us accomplish that goal.”
Chris Blankenship, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Commissioner

Alabama State Park upgrades

Cheaha 1 E1724692922282 — (Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources)

Thanks to voters’ approval of an $85 million bond measure issue in 2022, numerous improvement projects at State Parks have been completed or are currently under construction.

The combination of that bond money, state park revenues, Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill funds and funds provided by the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) currently supports more than $220 million in renovations and upgrades at Alabama’s 21 state parks.

Some of the major projects include:

Just last week, officials gathered at Lakepoint State Park to announce that more than two dozen water and wastewater projects at Alabama State Parks, many of which will use ductile iron pipe manufactured in Alabama.