E. P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park is a 550-acre (220 ha)[2] Kentucky state park located in the Freys Hill area of Louisville, Kentucky, on former land of Kentucky's old Central State Hospital. When opened in 1974, it was named in honor of Republican Jefferson County Judge/Executive Erbon Powers "Tom" Sawyer (18 November 1915 - 23 September 1969), who was killed five years before in a car accident on Louisville's Interstate 64 in 1969 at age 53 while still in office. Judge Sawyer was the father of journalist / television news anchor Diane Sawyer (born 1945, at CBS News and later ABC News).
The park's amenities include an activities center with a gymnasium that has indoor courts for badminton, basketball, and volleyball as well as an Olympic-sized swimming pool and weight room. The park also has 12 tennis courts (which used to be lighted but the lights have been removed), 14 soccer fields, 3 lighted softball fields, a mile-long fitness trail, a 1¼ mile nature trail, a permanent BMX track, a model aircraft airfield, a dog park, playgrounds, and picnic facilities.[2] The park is also the site of the Louisville Astronomical Society's "Urban Astronomy Center."
Three decades after E.P.. Tom Sawyer State Park opened in 1974, then in 2004, Louisville City officials suggested that Otter Creek Park, a 2,600-acre (1,100 ha) city-operated park lying outside of Louisville's city limits, become a state park in an exchange for E. P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park becoming a city park.[3] Six years later finally in 2010, the state took over the city's Otter Creek Park in a separate deal and it reopened the following year in 2011 after renovations and improvements as an outdoor recreation area operated by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.[4]
