Since its ribbon cutting on May 10, 2021, there have been nearly 8,000 total visits to Pal's Park! 62% of all visitors live in the 17401 zip code, 64.7% of visitors live within 1 mile of the park, and 56.2% of visitors visited more than 3 times since the park opened.

🐶 Give Like a Good Pal:

Thanks to supporters like you during Give Local York, Pal's Park officially opened to the public on May 10, 2021! The park is the vision of Holden Feeser, a York City kid, who wanted to build a place to play with her Great Dane, Brutus.

🐕‍🦺 Pal's Story :

Pal’s Park is an off-leash dog recreation area on a 1-acre parcel of the York County Heritage Rail Trail. It was built by volunteers and funded by supporters like you! The park continues to be maintained by volunteers, alongside the City of York Public Works Department.

Pal's Park location was selected because it is the home to a bronze statue of Pal, a German Shepherd. The statue of Pal was created to honor York County native Arthur Glatfelter Jr., a savvy entrepreneur who started an insurance company and made many contributions to the community.

The story of Glatfelter and his dog started in 1942. During World War II, the then-teenage Glatfelter decided to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps. With no one to care for his dog, he anxiously brought the beloved pet with him to the military base. To his surprise, Pal was welcomed and, with training, put into service as a scout in a Marine war dog platoon. Eventually, the two were sent on different missions in the South Pacific and separated. But in 1946 they were reunited and honorably discharged. Glatfelter and Pal spent many more happy years together. Sixty years after their military service, the bronze sculpture of Glatfelter’s dog Pal was unveiled during a Veterans Day program.

💜 Holden's Story :

Pal’s Park exists today because of a family fundraising dream that started in 2019. When Holden was in second grade, she and her mom, Meagan, launched a grassroots effort to build a real, safe, joyful off-leash dog park in York City — a place that didn’t exist yet for the thousands of city dogs and their humans.

They won USA Today Network's A Community Thrives Grant and then, from 2019 through 2021, they engaged community sponsors and fundraised during Give Local York. The early support and community enthusiasm they built helped bring Pal’s Park from an idea on paper to an actual fenced park on the Rail Trail.

Their fundraising laid the foundation — literally — for the Pal’s Park you see today: a volunteer-maintained, community-built, open-to-everyone space serving thousands of York County dog-owning households.

Holden’s childhood dream of helping create a dog park turned into a real, lasting piece of York’s public space — one that continues to grow, evolve, and welcome dogs and humans from across the city and beyond.

Pal's Park: A Community Dog Park

Overview

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