Echo Cliff Park

Echo Cliff Park, southwest of Dover, Kansas, is in an area once known as Gibbsville. This cool little park is owned by the Echo Cliff Park Trust. The park area was cleared the 1920s and was eventually deeded to the Dover Grange to be preserved for the public.

The park has unusual folk art signs, picnic tables, camp ground and a shelter that were all built from scrap metal and concrete by Earl Hepworth, a local farmer who has been a caretaker of the park since the 1960s.

Mission Creek enters the park, passing under two bridges and running past the base of the 50-foot cliffs that give Echo Cliff Park its name. One of the bridges carries Echo Creek Road over the creek. It stands next to a truss bridge built in about 1920 that is open only to pedestrians.

Echo Cliff received its name in 1895, but archeological evidence indicates that Native Americans lived or camped here over 1,000 years ago. More recently it may have been the site of a Kanza Indian village encampment.

Echo Cliff Parks hours are now from sunrise to sunset. No one is allowed on the property after dark. We do allow camping if the campers contact the Wabaunsee Co. Sheriff's office to let them know that they will be there after dark camping. If there is a fire ban for our county, no campfires are allowed at the park either.