Two names Centerville
A shaded block on the 1849 town grid, two blocks from City Hall, with both of its names still in use
William R. Smith Park, which the city also still calls Founders.
Centerville's parks page lists it as William R. Smith (Founders) Park, in that double barrelled form, and the city's own festival schedule uses both names in the same document. The man it is named for was the first president of the co-operative store built on the corner of Main and Center Streets in 1869, a five minute walk away. On the block today: a pavilion for a hundred, forty parking stalls with City Hall overflow, mature shade, and a Sons of Utah Pioneers monument.
I work Southern Utah, a long drive south of Davis County, so these pages are researched rather than lived. Every figure below was read where it is issued: Centerville City's own code, parks, museum, utility and trails pages and the trail map it publishes; the National Park Service register file and the multiple property nomination written for this town in 1997; the federal historic preservation council; the Utah Geological Survey; and the state transit and tax agencies. Each fact carries the date it was checked. A Davis County partner agent handles the work on the ground.
The live question
Is it Founders Park or William R. Smith Park, and who was he?
Both names are live and the city itself prints both. Centerville's own parks page lists it as William R. Smith (Founders) Park at 300 North 100 East, in exactly that double barrelled form, and the city's Freedom Festival schedule uses the two interchangeably in the same document: the Friday evening event is billed as Founder's Family Fun Night and it is held at William R. Smith Park. So this is not a case of an old name and a new one. It is a case of a town that never finished changing over, which is a more useful thing to know than a renaming date would be.
Who William R. Smith was is the part nobody has connected, and it comes out of the federal nomination written for this town in 1997. That document records that in 1869 a co-op store was built on the corner of Main and Center Streets with William R. Smith as the first president, and that the goods were bought from the co-operative mercantile in Salt Lake City. The city's own history adds that the co-op stayed open more than seventy years and closed in 1940, and that the building standing on that corner went up in 1903. So the park two blocks away carries the name of the man who ran the town's first co-operative store, and the corner he ran it on is a five minute walk from the park bench.
As a park it is a small, old, shaded municipal block two blocks from City Hall, and the city publishes exactly what is on it: an east pavilion with a capacity of a hundred, barbecue grills, drinking fountains, pavilions, a playground, and what the city describes as plenty of trees with plenty of shade, all of it read on the city's parks page on 15 August 2026. Parking is forty stalls with additional parking available at City Hall. That last detail is the one that matters most, because it is the reason a park this size can hold the town on the evening of 3 July.
The park, in numbers
40
parking stalls, with City Hall overflow next door
100
the east pavilion's capacity
1869
the year its namesake ran the town's first co-op
No. 66
the Sons of Utah Pioneers marker standing in it
The monument
A memorial that opens its account of this town a year later than the city does.
Standing in this park is a marker titled Memorial to Centerville Pioneers, catalogued as Sons of Utah Pioneers marker number 66. It covers settlement, early construction methods, water systems, religious institutions and infrastructure through the middle of the twentieth century, and its text is attributed to Vestil Harrison of the Centerville Historical Society. The city has a museum programme named for the same man, which means the person who wrote the town's monument has a day named after him in the town's own events list. That is a sentence no aggregator has.
The interesting thing about the marker is where it starts. It opens its narrative in 1848. Centerville City, on its own history page, states that Centerville was first settled in 1847 by Thomas Grover. Those are not competing claims about one event so much as two issuers choosing different starting points, and the federal nomination shows why both are defensible: Grover arrived in the autumn of 1847 to pasture cattle, and the Deuels, Cherrys, Porters, Parrishes and the rest arrived in 1848 and made it a settlement. The honest treatment is to name the disagreement out loud rather than pick a side, and this companion does that everywhere the question comes up.
What this page will not do is publish a list of names off the monument. The full inscription is not available in published form: one marker index photographs it and the transcription available is partial, and the main marker database was unreachable throughout. Publishing a partial name list off a monument is exactly how errors get into circulation and stay there. Read it on the stone.
There is a second reason to be careful with a pioneer monument on a property site, and it is worth saying once. A list of settlers who arrived in 1848 is a historical record of who was here then. It is not, and must never be used as, a description of who lives in Centerville now. This page describes a marker, a park and a set of dates.
The details
Getting there
From I-15 exit 319 take Parrish Lane east to Main Street, turn south, and turn east at 300 North; the park is a block and a half along at 100 East. It sits inside the 1849 town grid rather than out on a modern collector road, which is why it feels like an old park: the block pattern around it is the original survey. Park in the park's own forty stalls, and if those are full on an event day the city's own overflow is the City Hall lot two blocks away.
Before you go
- Pavilion and field prices are published annually and were read at the city on 15 August 2026. Confirm before you book.
- Restrooms and water are seasonal. From mid October to mid April the park is open and the plumbing is not.
- The monument is a Sons of Utah Pioneers marker. Do not attribute it to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers, who marked two other Centerville sites.
- On 3 July this park is the finish of a children's parade and the site of a five hour evening event. Forty stalls will not cover it, so walk in.
Seven parks
The city publishes an address for every one, and four of them are missing from the practical guide.
Centerville runs seven city parks and its parks page gives an address, a pavilion capacity, a parking count and a price for each. It publishes no acreage for any of them. Here is the whole system in one place, because no other page on this site has it.
| Address | Pavilion | Parking | What is distinctive about it | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| William R. Smith (Founders) Park | 300 North 100 East | East pavilion, capacity 100 | 40 stalls, with City Hall overflow | The pioneer monument, mature shade trees, and the 3 July evening |
| Community Park | 1350 North 400 West | East pavilion, capacity 100 | Not published | The largest programme space: the Kid's Market, the all day 4 July Party in the Park and the fireworks. Fields rent at 10 dollars an hour, or 25 with lights |
| Freedom Hills Park | 2150 North 150 East | Capacity 70 | 29 regular stalls plus 7 truck and trailer pull through stalls | Two trailheads, one for walkers and one for horses, a nine hole disc golf course and a veterans memorial |
| Smoot Park | 75 West 1500 North | East pavilion, capacity 40 | Not published | A creek runs through it; the green space west of the creek rents at 10 dollars an hour, and the Smoot Dairy Farmhouse on the Register is a short walk away |
| Island View Park | 750 East 500 South | Capacity 50 | Not published | High on the bench on the south side, renting a multi sport field at 10 dollars an hour |
| Porter Walton Park | 95 South 400 West | Capacity 50 | Not published | Named for a seed company that was trading here by 1912 and outlasted the century; the green space south of the basketball courts rents at 10 dollars an hour |
| Lee Skabelund Memorial Nature Park | 100 South 700 East | None | Street parking only | Undeveloped, with a retention pond, and the only standing water inside the city limits |
Addresses, capacities, parking counts and prices as published by Centerville City on its parks page, read 15 August 2026. Pavilion rental is flat across the whole system at 25 dollars for a resident and 50 for a non resident. Parks are open daily 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., and full restroom facilities and water services run from 15 April to 15 October. All prices are reviewed annually. No acreage is published for any park; the figures in circulation come from other sources and are not verified here.
There is no splash pad and no amphitheatre at this park, and forty stalls is the whole answer on an event day. The city's amenity list for William R. Smith (Founders) Park names barbecue grills, drinking fountains, pavilions, a playground and plenty of trees with plenty of shade, and it names nothing else. Third hand descriptions of a splash pad or a built amphitheatre here are not supported by anything the city publishes; the concerts on 3 July run off a temporary stage on the lawn, which is a different and more honest thing. The parking is the other thing to plan around. Forty stalls is generous for a neighbourhood park on an ordinary Tuesday and it is nothing at all on the evening of 3 July, when a children's parade finishes here and a five hour event follows it. City Hall's lot is the published overflow, and walking in is the sensible answer.
Living with it
An old park on an old grid does something a new one on a collector road cannot.
The thing that makes this park work is not on the amenity list. It is two blocks from the city offices, inside the original 1849 survey grid, under trees old enough that the shade is a structural feature rather than a landscaping note, with the town's civic monument standing on it and a hard parking number attached. That combination is why the city puts its 3 July evening here rather than at the bigger park across town, and it is why the children's parade finishes here. The festival page carries the routes, the times and the rest of the schedule.
For a household weighing an old grid address, the practical facts are the seasonal ones. The parks are open every day from seven in the morning to ten at night, all year, but restrooms and running water are only available from 15 April to 15 October. That single sentence, published on the city's parks page and nowhere else that matters, is the most useful operational fact in Centerville's whole recreation system, and it is worth knowing before booking anything in March or in November. Reserving the pavilion costs twenty five dollars as a resident and fifty otherwise, flat across all seven parks, and the prices are reviewed annually.
The park a bench household should also know about is the one the practical city guide never names. Freedom Hills Park at 2150 North 150 East carries two trailheads, one for walkers and one for horses, twenty nine regular parking stalls plus seven pull through stalls for trucks and trailers, a nine hole disc golf course and a veterans memorial. Seven horse trailer stalls is the only published equestrian parking in this town and it tells you exactly what kind of trailhead that is. The city's trail map lists a Freedom Hills trailhead at 2250 North Park Hills Drive, which is the access point rather than the park's own street address.
What Centerville does not have, and it is worth stating so nobody goes looking, is a pond. The county's inventory of Davis ponds and water edges runs through Steed Pond, Bountiful Pond, Farmington Pond, Clinton Pond and the Kaysville ponds, and none of them is here. The only standing water inside these city limits is the retention pond at Lee Skabelund Memorial Nature Park, which the city describes as undeveloped with street parking. The county lakeside page has the real ones, one exit either way.
The big evening
The Freedom Festival
Three dates, a children's parade that finishes on this lawn, and a flyover scheduled to the minute.
Read the guideTwo blocks south
Historic Centerville
The co-op corner this park's namesake presided over, and twenty six Register listings around it.
Read the guideThe water
The lakeside parks
Where the county's ponds actually are, because there is not one inside this city.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to Centerville
The rest of the municipal picture: rates, irrigation, the fireworks line and the August tax hearing.
The mover pageUp the hill
Parrish Canyon
The dry slope above the top streets, with a short loop to a viewpoint over the lake.
Read the guideThe practical side
The Centerville city guide
Prices, taxes, providers and drive times, with the town's east wind record in full.
Open the guideKeep reading
More of Centerville on The Local.
The creek canyon
Deuel Creek
Two dirt trailheads half a mile apart, a dozen log bridges, and a fall past the swing.
Read the guideThe dry slope
Parrish Canyon
A 0.85 mile walk, a 1.95 mile sunset loop, or a thousand feet up to the crest road.
Read the guideThe old grid
Historic Centerville
Twenty six Register listings, a federal designation, and a stonemason you can read.
Read the guideThree days
The Freedom Festival
Three dates, two parade routes, a flyover at 8:38, and a ban running the same month.
Read the guideMoving here
Moving to Centerville
Wood water pipes in 1915, two irrigation systems, and a fire line in street names.
Read the guideThe companion
Centerville, in full
The town named for sitting in the middle, and the water it incorporated itself to go and get.
Read the pageQuick answers
The park, answered.
Both, and the city has never finished changing over. Centerville's own parks page lists the park as William R. Smith (Founders) Park at 300 North 100 East, carrying the older name in parentheses, and the city's Freedom Festival schedule uses the two interchangeably in one document: Founder's Family Fun Night is held at William R. Smith Park. So rather than treating one as former and one as current, the useful thing to know is that a local giving directions may use either and mean the same block.
The first president of Centerville's co-operative store. The multiple property nomination accepted by the National Park Service for this town records that in 1869 a co-op store was built on the corner of Main and Center Streets with William R. Smith as the first president, and that its goods were bought from the co-operative mercantile in Salt Lake City. Centerville City adds that the co-op stayed open for more than seventy years and closed in 1940, and that the building now standing on that corner was built in 1903. The park is a short walk from the corner.
At 300 North 100 East, inside the original town grid, about two blocks from City Hall at 250 North Main Street. It is a walk of under five minutes from City Hall and under a minute to drive. Parking is forty stalls, and the city publishes City Hall's lot as additional parking, which is the reason a park this size can hold a city event. From I-15 exit 319 take Parrish Lane east to Main Street, turn south, and turn east at 300 North.
No. The city's own amenity list for this park names barbecue grills, drinking fountains, pavilions, a playground and plenty of trees with plenty of shade, and nothing else. There is no published splash pad and no built amphitheatre either. The concerts held here on the evening of 3 July run off a temporary stage on the lawn, which is a different and more honest description of the same event. If you want a park with a published water feature in Centerville, the city does not have one.
A marker titled Memorial to Centerville Pioneers, catalogued as Sons of Utah Pioneers marker number 66, whose text is attributed to Vestil Harrison of the Centerville Historical Society. It covers settlement, early construction methods, water systems, religious institutions and infrastructure through the middle of the twentieth century. Note that Centerville's markers come from two different organisations: this one is a Sons of Utah Pioneers marker, while the marker at the 1866 stagecoach building on Center Street is a Daughters of Utah Pioneers marker, number 120, raised in 1948.
The monument opens its narrative in 1848. Centerville City, on its own history page, says the town was first settled in 1847 by Thomas Grover. Both are defensible and the federal nomination shows why: Grover arrived in the autumn of 1847 to pasture cattle, and the Deuel brothers, Aaron Cherry, Nathan Porter, Samuel Parrish and the rest arrived in 1848 and turned it into a settlement. Rather than pick a side, this companion names the disagreement wherever it comes up, because the disagreement is more informative than either date alone.
Twenty five dollars for a resident and fifty dollars for a non resident, and the price is flat across the whole park system. The east pavilion at William R. Smith Park has a capacity of a hundred. Field rentals run ten dollars an hour without lights, and twenty five dollars an hour with lights at Community Park. Those figures were read on the city's parks page on 15 August 2026 and they are reviewed annually, so confirm the current amount with the city before booking anything.
From 15 April to 15 October, and that is the single most useful operational fact about this park system. The city states that full restroom facilities and water services are available throughout the peak season, from 15 April to 15 October. The parks themselves are open every day of the year from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. So for roughly half the year the gates are open and the plumbing is not, which is worth knowing before planning a March birthday or a November gathering around a city pavilion.
Seven, and the one with the trailheads is Freedom Hills Park at 2150 North 150 East, which the practical city guide does not name. The city lists two trailheads there, one for walkers and one for horses, alongside twenty nine regular parking stalls and seven pull through stalls for trucks and trailers, a nine hole disc golf course, a veterans memorial, a pavilion for seventy, grills, fountains, paved jogging paths and a playground. The city's trail map gives the Freedom Hills trailhead access as 2250 North Park Hills Drive.
An old block, two live names, and the one night a year the whole town stands on it.
A park two blocks from the city offices, inside the original survey grid, under trees that have been growing since long before anyone reading this was born, is a different proposition from a park on a collector road with a new playground. It is also the reason the old grid streets around it hold their value in a way that is worth understanding street by street rather than city wide. If an address in this part of Centerville is what you are weighing, tell me what you are looking at and I will put you with a Davis County partner agent who works this town, and stay on the file for the financing side.
Referral disclosure. Outside Southern Utah, I connect home sellers and buyers with partner agents I trust in their area. If you choose to work with an agent I refer, that agent's brokerage pays my brokerage (Real Broker, LLC) a referral fee. The fee comes out of the agent's compensation; it is not an added cost to you. You are always free to choose any agent you wish, and using a referred agent is never required.