A campground at Johnson County Park in rural Nineveh near Camp Atterbury. The park is expanding its campground and the campground at Hoosier Horse Park.
Submitted photo
Johnson County Park has become a popular place to camp, so much county officials decided to expand the park’s two campgrounds.
The main park boasts 60 campsites, and the adjoining Hoosier Horse Park holds 70 sites. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the park saw an increased interest in camping, to the point where the campgrounds are full most weekends, said Kevin Leonard, parks director. Those numbers stayed high even post-pandemic, he said.
“That was something people could do kind of during the pandemic and still get outside and still have an activity to do. So we’ve kind of seen that growth since then,” Leonard said.
Hoosier Horse Park hosts 40 to 50 horse shows a year now, which also attracts a lot of campers to that campground.
Camping is one of both parks’ main sources of revenue, Leonard said. With the growth recently, it made sense to ask the county park board, and then the Johnson County Board of Commissioners for an expansion.
The expanded Johnson County Park Campground will add 11 new sites. All the sites at the campground are for campers and RVs only, with water and electric hookups. The 11 new sites will be full hookups with water, electric and sewer, which is a new plus, Leonard said.
Ten campsites will be added to Hoosier Horse Park, with just water and electric hookups.
The cost of the expansions are paid for with bond funding from the county. Johnson County Park’s expansion will cost $177,783 and Hoosier Horse Park’s $120,123. The county commissioners approved the bids from Trafalgar-based contractor C.W. Sneed in late April.
Construction on Hoosier Horse Park will start this month. The expansion of both campgrounds is expected to be done by this fall.
“We’re definitely looking forward to it,” Leonard said.
