The first time you try to find the pro disc golf course at Graham Creek, you will probably drive past it. The entrance sits off a dirt stretch of Russian Road, past a turnaround on the Foley Beach Expressway, with a small sign easy to miss if you are not already looking for it. That gap between what the preserve is and how easy it is to actually use turns out to be the real story here, more than the acreage numbers everyone already knows.
Graham Creek Nature Preserve spans roughly 650 acres on the west shore of Wolf Bay in southeast Foley, and city officials describe it as the largest municipal nature preserve in Alabama. Ten miles of hiking trail run through it, along with two ADA-accessible boardwalks, a kayak launch, an archery park, and four separate disc golf courses. That is the pitch every visitor guide repeats, and it is accurate. What it leaves out is that a park this size has spent years quietly outgrowing its own infrastructure, and 2026 is the year the city started closing that gap.
The land was never the hard part
Foley's Sustainability and Natural Resources Director, Leslie Gahagan, put the real problem plainly in a WKRG interview: the preserve sits tucked on the west shore of Wolf Bay, not visible from any road you would drive past on your way somewhere else. A park the size of a small state park does not help you if you cannot find the entrance or use the restroom once you get there. For a resident who has lived in Foley for years without ever setting foot in Graham Creek, that explanation probably tracks better than any acreage figure.
The land itself grew for a reason worth naming directly. In September 2025, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded Foley a $4 million grant, funded through the Coastal Zone Management Habitat Protection and Restoration program under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to acquire additional property for the preserve. Mayor Ralph Hellmich called it the first grant of its kind approved for the state of Alabama, and credited Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Director Chris Blankenship and State Lands Director Patti McCurdy for helping secure it. Hellmich's framing of the preserve stuck with me: a facility that functions like a state park without costing the state anything to run.
That grant is real and it is significant, but it buys land, not restrooms or trail signs. Those came later, and they came from the city budget, not a federal award.
What actually changes on the ground in 2026
Foley's city council has been working through a smaller, less headline-friendly list of fixes that matter more to someone who actually shows up to hike or play a round of disc golf.
In 2025, the council approved a fourth event pavilion, a 40-by-60-foot prefabricated structure going up on Philomene Holmes Boulevard, with an architectural-style roof and teak decking. That brought the preserve's pavilion count to four, spread across a footprint that had outgrown its original three.
Then in June 2026, the council approved something more useful for regular trail and disc golf users: new restrooms and another pavilion on Russian Road, positioned specifically to serve the back disc golf courses and the trailheads out there. Gahagan explained the reasoning to WKRG in terms any regular visitor would recognize:
"This would service all of our disc golf courses in the back, as well as the trail heads there."
There is a sequencing detail worth knowing if you plan to visit this fall. Russian Road itself was mid-repaving by Baldwin County at the time of the June 2026 approval, and city officials said construction on the new restrooms and pavilion would not begin until that road work finished. Gahagan told the council the city planned to finalize design this year and get pricing back before breaking ground the following year. That is not a promise of imminent construction, and it means the back-course experience this fall will look much like it has looked for a while.
The council also approved funding to install new trail signage throughout the preserve, addressing the exact wayfinding problem Gahagan described in her interview. If you have gotten turned around trying to connect the Prairie course to the Pecan Hollow course in the past, that fix is finally underway.
The four courses, if you have not sorted them out yet
Graham Creek's disc golf setup is one of its most-used features and also one of the most confusing to navigate without a map, which is exactly why the signage project matters. Here is how the four courses break down:
- The Prairie Course, an amateur-friendly loop that starts near the Interpretive Center, runs along the wood line north of Graham Creek, and passes the outdoor classroom and pavilion area before ending back near the Interpretive Center.
- The Preserve Course, a pro-level layout in the southern portion of the preserve, south of the pitcher plant loop trail, designed by a professional disc golfer. Access is off Russian Road.
- Pecan Hollow, a wooded, technically demanding course accessible from the same Russian Road parking area, just west of the Preserve course.
- A fourth course built around the pitcher plant loop area, reachable by parking near the kayak launch and crossing the boardwalk.
If you are new to the preserve, start at the Prairie course near the Interpretive Center. It is the easiest to find without help, and it puts you closest to the restrooms and parking that already exist.
A second park is getting an upgrade too
Graham Creek is not the only Foley nature park in line for improvements. The city is also pursuing a grant through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs Recreational Trails Program to fund an ADA-compliant overlook boardwalk at Wolf Creek Park. If awarded, that grant would cover 80 percent of construction costs. It is a smaller project than Graham Creek's, but it points to the same pattern: Foley's nature parks are getting infrastructure attention this year that goes beyond simply adding acreage.
Why this matters if you already live here
None of this changes what Graham Creek is. It is still 650 acres of pine savanna, bottomland wetland, and tidal marsh along Wolf Bay, still home to carnivorous pitcher plants and a kayak launch that lets you paddle straight into the creek with no development in sight. What changes is how easy it becomes to actually use that land without already knowing where everything is.
If you have driven past the Wolf Bay Drive entrance for years without stopping, or if you have hiked the Prairie course but never found your way to Pecan Hollow, this is the year to go back. The trail signs are coming. The restrooms near the back courses are in the design phase. Russian Road itself is getting repaved. None of it happened overnight, and none of it is finished, but for a preserve that Foley's own sustainability director once described as hidden, that is worth knowing before your next weekend free.
If you are weighing what else is changing in Foley beyond its parks, our post on everyday living in Foley covers more of the daily-life texture of the town, and our Foley neighborhood page has a broader look at the area.
When you are ready to talk about property near Graham Creek, downtown Foley, or anywhere else along this stretch of the Alabama Gulf Coast, Stacy Burgos Rodgers is happy to compare notes on which part of town is changing fastest. Let's connect.
