A city-owned preserve near Alabama’s beaches offers something hard to find on Alabama’s bustling coast: A true sense of isolation in nature.

The nearby Gulf State Park is a crown jewel of the state park system, offering RV camping, a landmark fishing pier, a recently redeveloped lodge, lakes and trails. The Bon Secour National Wildlife Refugeof protects thousands of acres critical beach habitat along the Fort Morgan peninsula.

Compared to those magnets, Foley’s Graham Creek Preserve is smaller, newer and much less widely known. Yet it has rewards of its own. Meandering through its fields, you may find rare, exotic pitcher plants sprouting up close at hand.

And if the wind is right, the gentle sound it makes as it blows through the pines is enough to completely drown out the outside world. Even though the preserve lies just off the Foley Beach Express and near the OWA entertainment complex, no outside noise intrudes.

Leslie Gahagan, Foley’s director of sustainability and natural resources, said the isolation isn’t perfect and that noise from a nearby shooting range can intrude at times. But generally, acres of upland forest provide a buffer against traffic and other noise.

Gahagan said the city purchased the first portion of the property around 2004 for a utility project. But about the time she came on board in 2006, she said, maintenance crews had noticed something interesting. “They were saying, ‘Hey, there’s some crazy-looking plants out there,’” she said.

Southwest Alabama has a few places where natural pitcher plant bogs have endured, notably the Splinter Hill Bog near Bay Minette. They are remnants of the longleaf pine savannas that once covered huge swaths of the Southeast, and in the modern era, caretakers have tried to renew that ecosystem in select areas, planting longleaf and using controlled burns to keep out invasive species.

(This story is a part of our summer series, Unsung Alabama, that aims to tell the story of some of the state’s hidden gems. Let us know about any story ideas here.)

As Foley leadership began to realize it had something special on its hands, Gahagan began pursuing grants to develop the property. “By 2010, we had a master plan and a canoe launch and we were moving forward with creating a pocket-type park, small scale, and fully funded really by grants with very little [city] funds,” said Gahagan. “And it kind of grew from that. … The mayor and council were very supportive of us building what we’ve got now, and it’s continued to be very heavily supported by our city leaders as well as state or state partners.”

READ MORE: 8 reasons we love Foley

(Side note: The Foley City Council also recently approved the first phase of a plan “to enhance the constructed stormwater wetlands in the Bon Secour River headwaters as a publicly accessible passive recreation area.” That site will be known as the Andrew James Wetland Reserve.)

At about 650 acres, the city-owned preserve is now larger than quite a few of Alabama’s state parks. It’s nowhere near the largest, to be fair – nearby Gulf State Park is more than 6,000 acres, for example – but as a nature preserve of its size, created by a municipality, it’s something rare.

It does have significant amenities, including a playground, disc golf courses and a kayak launch that gives entry to the network of waterways to the east, including Wolf Bay, Moccasin Bayou and Hammock Bay. (There’s even a self-service app-based kayak rental kiosk, where you get a kayak, life vest and paddle for two hours for $20.) It provides a site for school field trips, cross-country runs and archery tournaments that draw thousands of off-season visitors to Foley.

Despite all that activity, however, it is not a comprehensively groomed park setting. It is just what the label says: a nature preserve.

“We focus on conservation and habitat management, so we’re constantly burning and treating the invasive species, kind of holding the line best we can,” said Gahagan. “We’ve started some programs with reintroduction of native species, [such as] quail. We’ve kind of managed it for gopher tortoise habitat, we replanted some of the fields for longleaf pine forests, and all that has been extremely successful.”

Its trails lead into a network of forested patches and clearings. The clearings are crisscrossed by paths that allow explorers to wander. Signs hint at the wildlife they might see: “turtle range,” “gopher path,” “snake range,” and so on. Gahagan said many of the current trails originated as farm roads or firebreaks when the land was privately owned.

“We stay super busy out here with the trail walkers and runners and then obviously our canoe launch stays packed and we have four full disc golf courses,” said Gahagan. “The disc golf is a great integration into the conservation areas, having that recreational ability with low maintenance needs. And then we’ve kind of branched into some events. We host quite a few cross-country races. We also host the national championship for Sun Belt Colleges for the cross country, and archery’s been one of our biggest economic drivers out here. … So all these events, all this recreation, education programs, our little staff of 10 is bringing in about 100,000 people annually through this park. So when you say it’s kind of a hidden gem, it, it really is. We really don’t advertise, as a city park.”

It may grow into a gem that’s harder to hide. Gahagan said backers have been building grant money, including funds allocated through the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, to expand the preserve. It’s too early to reveal details, but she’s hopeful that those plans will bear fruit in the next couple of years.

Meanwhile, she said, the bird diversity is increasing and the pitcher plants are thriving in areas where they weren’t even seen before.

“I just want people to be able to see the landscape as it was in our past, if man hadn’t come in and disturbed it,” said Gahagan. “So we’re doing everything we can to give that sense of the past and how nature existed then.”

Graham Creek Nature Preserve’s Interpretive Center is at 23030 Wolf Bay Drive in Foley. The preserve itself is open from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, with no admission charge. For full information including maps and details of guided tours, visit grahamcreekpreserve.org.