Mother Nature's Window Is Open Again. Its Picnic Shelter Is Still Waiting on Congress.

"He didn't need a long obituary. He had a park."

Marysville City Councilmember Peter Condyles said that about Merton "Mert" Turk at the May 14 ribbon-cutting for Mother Nature's Window Park. Turk died in 2013, and Condyles noted that his obituary ran fewer than 20 words and never mentioned the forest he spent decades saving.

So the 34 acres at 9623 55th Ave. NE are open again after more than 25 years. But the park that reopened is the forest. The gathering place Turk built inside it is gone. The pieces that would bring some of it back are a restroom, a nature play area and a sheltered picnic space. Those depend on a federal funding request that, as of late September, had cleared only a House committee, at roughly half the amount the city asked for. This first fall is a quiet walk in second-growth woods, and the reasons go back to 1963.

Turk built a dance hall in the trees

Turk was a logger who began buying land north of Marysville in 1947, planning to cut the timber. In 1963 he changed course. He wanted people to have somewhere safe to gather.

Condyles' history of the site, published in January, lists what Turk built over the next decade:

• A dance floor made from wood chips the city donated after windstorms
• A bandstand, outhouses, a food service area and running water
• Stump seating, a barbecue and picnic tables he made himself
• Around 100 kerosene lamps hung in the trees
• An 8-track player built into a tree stump, with a pulley system to lift speakers into the branches
• Birdhouses and boxes for flying squirrels

At its height the park held 200 people, and Turk made sure it was wheelchair accessible. As groups started booking it for events and Scout troops came to learn about nature, he began charging a fee. Every dollar went to Seattle Children's Hospital, and children with disabilities could use the park free.

How 15 private acres became 34 public ones

Turk owned only 15 acres. Other owners held most of the 46 forested acres around his park. In 1990 a family sold its parcel to Belmark Industries, a local homebuilder that planned 35 homes with a three-acre buffer around the park. A city sewer moratorium bought Turk's side two years. In the summer of 1992, Snohomish County Hearing Examiner John Galt approved the plat anyway, and The Everett Herald wrote that "a 45-acre park seems increasingly unlikely."

"This park should have never happened," Condyles said at the reopening. "The hearing examiner approved houses to be built where we are standing, and Mert was able to convince the County Council to spend conservation futures money on buying it."

Snohomish County bought the land in the late 1990s, and it came into Marysville with a larger annexation in 2009. The city describes the decades that followed as a closure "due to safety and funding challenges." A renewed effort that started in 2021 produced a phased plan to reopen it while protecting the forest's natural character.

What Phase 1 actually built

Construction began in 2025. Matia Contractors held a $1.47 million construction budget, and a $750,000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant covered about half of it, with the city funding the rest. The park opened to the public in January 2026. The May 14 event was the formal celebration.

Phase 1 was built for walking. It added accessible walkways, restored trails, benches, landscaping, irrigation and signage, plus a new parking lot with sidewalks and a bus turnaround. The named routes in the Herald's opening-day photos are the Cedar Loop, the Fern Trail and Comeford Road.

Comeford Road is the oldest thing on the property. A road ran through the southeast corner of the site on the earliest maps of the area, and the park's trail system follows it. Pioneers with homesteads outside town used it to get into Marysville, and loggers used it to reach timber farther inland. Turk and many others said it was named for Marysville founder James Comeford. Condyles found no period mapping that confirms or rules out the name. He also found no evidence for the story that it was once a railroad.

Some of Turk's work is still on the trails. Signs on the trees show his estimate of each tree's age, and his flying squirrel boxes are still there. The trees themselves are second growth, not old growth. Condyles dates their planting to roughly the era when early Marysville lumberman Nicholas Healy owned the land, in the 1890s through 1915.

Here is the park across its three eras, based on Condyles' history, the Herald's opening coverage and the city's Phase 2 request:

The missing pieces sit in a bill that hasn't passed

On May 5, Rep. Suzan DelBene nominated the City of Marysville's "Mother Nature's Window Park Improvement" project for $1,698,000 in federal Fiscal Year 2027 funding. The request covers a restroom, a nature play area and a sheltered picnic space. That figure comes close to the city's own March 2025 estimate that future amenities would need about $2 million in grants or other funding.

The House Appropriations Committee approved its FY2027 transportation and housing bill 34 to 27 on June 3. The committee's Community Project Funding table lists the Marysville park at $850,000, roughly half the request. The bill, H.R. 9170, was placed on the House Union Calendar on June 5, and Congress.gov shows no further action. The Congressional Research Service appropriations tracker, last updated September 23, shows no Senate committee action on the bill.

The park has a House committee recommendation for about half of what the city asked for. That money is not enacted, and the Senate has not acted. If the $850,000 survives, it covers part of the $1.7 million request. Which of the three features would get built first at that level is a question no public source has answered yet. The Herald reported in May that DelBene and Sen. Maria Cantwell are working to secure the Phase 2 funding. A 2022 concept that included an off-leash dog area and an amphitheater is not part of the current request, and nothing in the Phase 1 descriptions lists either feature.

Walking it this fall with what's there now

Because the park is built for walking, these practical details matter most:

1. Hours follow daylight. Marysville city code opens parks "from 7:00 a.m. until 30 minutes after sunset," unless signs or the parks director set different hours. As October goes on, the window after work gets shorter, so weekend mornings are the easiest time for a full loop.
2. Dogs are allowed on a leash no longer than 10 feet. City code also requires you to carry waste bags and pick up after your dog.
3. Plan on no restroom. A public restroom is a proposed Phase 2 addition, and we could not confirm any facility on site.
4. Check your shoes. A posted sign asks visitors to check their footwear for invasive species before heading in.
5. Start on Comeford Road if you want the history. The Herald's opening-day photos show it running under a canopy of mixed trees, and the Cedar Loop and Fern Trail are the other named routes.

The city's park page carries official updates. Condyles' full history of the site is worth reading before your first walk. It covers the Turk family's four generations on this land, and the tree-age signs make more sense afterward.

A forest that almost became 35 houses in 1992 is now a public park on 55th Avenue NE, just south of 100th Street NE. If you live near it and want to know how this new public space and the rest of north Marysville figure into your home's value, Pilchard Properties can help. Get your instant home valuation, and we'll walk you through the local numbers.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.