55-acre park erected around the Heavener Runestone, a runestone found in 1923
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Overview
Heavener Runestone Park is a 55-acre (220,000 m2) park located in Le Flore County, Oklahoma. It is located near the city of Heavener, Oklahoma. Formerly a state park of Oklahoma, it was transferred to the City of Heavener in 2011, and is now operated by the Friends of Heavener Runestone, a non-profit organization. The Festival held at the park on two weekends a year serves as a fundraiser for operating and maintaining the park.
Opened in 1970, the park has been erected around the Heavener Runestone, a runestone found in 1923, and most likely inscribed in the 19th century, perhaps by a Swedish immigrant. The stone is located on Poteau Mountain just outside the town's limits.
Heavener Park offers picnic tables, outdoor grills, primitive campsites with showers available, amphitheater, playground, hiking, exploring, and educational programs about the Runestone.
Henrik Williams, a professor of Scandinavian languages at Uppsala University has studied the Heavener stone, as well as many other such stones elsewhere in the world. He said that the Heavener stone is an impressive runic memorial, but is unlikely to be as old as some of the local legends claim. He noted that there is no evidence that any Europeans were in this area during the Viking era. He stated that these runes represent the Elder Futhark system that was common during 100 to 700 A. D., which predated the Viking era (750 to 1000 A. D.). Tool marks are still visible on the stone, whereas they should have weathered away if they were created in the Viking era.
The park became the site for the annual Heavener Runestone Festival Fundraiser in 2011. Features of the event include Celtic and folk music, swordplay, displays of variety of merchant booths, games, a hike to view the runestone, and overnight camping. Cast and Volunteers are all dressed in costume and many attendees dress up as well.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Heavener Runestone Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
