Meridian: Parks, History, and Things to Do

When choosing Meridian as your destination, you can plan your trip around specific differences: parks, local history, and things to do each offer a distinct focus. For the parks, size and development history matter; the experiences range from a historic exhibit to planetarium shows and a laser tag arena.

Compare parks by size and development

Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park is a 58-acre regional park established in 2012. Settlers Park also covers 58 acres and was developed in several phases between 2003 and 2014. At 64 acres, Discovery Park is slightly larger; it was established in southern Meridian in 2019. This makes it six acres larger than each of the other two parks.

These details allow for two different comparisons: Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park and Settlers Park have the same stated area, while Discovery Park is the largest of the three. Their timelines offer a different perspective. Development of Settlers Park spanned several years; a single year of establishment is given for each of Julius M. Kleiner Memorial Park and Discovery Park. So if you plan your trip around parks, you can consider both their size and their individual development histories.

A property with changing uses

Meridian City Hall was inaugurated in 2008 on the same property where a dairy once stood. The connection is more than just a date: one specific site links its former use as a dairy to the opening of City Hall. For travelers interested in local history, this offers a vivid look at how a property has changed over time. Unlike the descriptions of the parks, the focus here is not on size, but on the sequence of two uses at one location.

An exhibit, a planetarium, and laser tag

At the Children’s Museum of Idaho, the “Conestoga Wagon” exhibit features an authentic covered wagon, along with toys and activities from that era. The historic object and the related period activities together form the focus of this exhibit. The same museum’s planetarium offers eight different shows, with daily screenings. This makes the planetarium experience quite different from the covered wagon exhibit: here, the focus is on a variety of show formats.

Wahooz Family Fun Zone has a laser tag arena, offering a different kind of activity from the two museum experiences. So when planning, you can start by choosing the type of experience you want: an authentic covered wagon with period activities, planetarium shows, or laser tag. These specific differences can help you match your interests to your trip without treating park history and things to do as the same thing.

Plan your stay around a theme

If you’re looking for a hotel for your stay in Meridian, it helps to have a clear idea of what you want to focus on during your trip. You can compare the parks by size and development; local history offers a link between the site’s former use as a dairy and City Hall, inaugurated in 2008; and the things to do offer a choice of different experience formats.

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