Shorty Howell Park is nearly three times the size of Rogers Bridge Park. Sixty-seven acres against twenty-four. If you were picking a walk by the numbers on a park sign, Shorty Howell wins before you've laced up.
But acreage measures the box a park sits in, not the walk you actually get. Rogers Bridge Park has something Shorty Howell doesn't: a bridge. And that bridge is the whole point.
The Contained Loop
Shorty Howell, at 2750 Pleasant Hill Road, is the park most Sugarloaf residents already know by heart. It opened in 1978, expanded with 1997 sales tax funding and again in 2001, and has settled into its current footprint as what locals treat as the default lap. The centerpiece is a 1.25-mile paved trail that circles a lake stocked with ducks and geese you're asked not to feed. Half the appeal is the predictability: same loop, same lake, same bench if you time it right.
It's also Gwinnett's working sports campus. Seven lighted baseball and softball fields serve as home turf for the Duluth Baseball and Softball Association, plus batting cages, playgrounds, and a lighted multi-purpose field. Dogs are welcome on the paved trail, leash required, but there's no fenced off-leash area. If you're walking a dog that needs to run without a line attached, this isn't that park.
Shorty Howell is a good walk. It is, deliberately, a closed one.
What a Rebuilt Bridge Actually Changes
Rogers Bridge Park looks smaller on paper because it is smaller on paper. What the acreage figure doesn't capture is that the park isn't really the destination. It's the on-ramp.
The bridge itself has a specific, recent history worth knowing. The original 1912 span crossing the Chattahoochee had been closed for years and was found too structurally compromised to restore, so in October 2021 the City of Duluth removed it entirely. A new truss, nearly twice the weight of the original at 287,000 pounds, was assembled on-site from 47 tractor-trailer loads of prefabricated steel and set into place the following June. The rebuilt bridge officially reopened in July 2023, connecting Duluth's Rogers Bridge Park to Johns Creek's Cauley Creek Park across county lines. In 2024 the project won the American Public Works Association's Project of the Year award in the structures category for work valued between five and twenty-five million dollars.
A quick timeline, because the sequence matters more than any single date:
- October 2021: The deteriorated 1912 bridge is removed from the river crossing.
- June 2022: A heavier replacement truss is set in place by crane.
- July 2023: The rebuilt bridge opens to the public, formally reconnecting Duluth and Johns Creek.
Standing on the new bridge, you're also standing next to a 27-foot public art piece called "The Shape of Time and Water," built by sculptor Phil Proctor using steel salvaged from the original 1912 structure. The old bridge didn't disappear. Part of it is still there, just vertical now instead of horizontal.
The Off-Leash Difference
If you're walking a dog rather than yourself, this is the fork in the road that actually matters more than trail length. Rogers Bridge Park has the Chattapoochee Dog Park, a fenced, off-leash facility with separate areas for small and large dogs, water fountains, and agility equipment. Shorty Howell doesn't have an equivalent. It's dog-friendly in the sense that leashed dogs are welcome on the paved loop, but there's no fenced run.
For a household with a dog that needs to move without a leash attached, this single fact does more to decide the day's walk than the size of either park.
Where the Walk Actually Goes
Here's the comparison in one place:
| Rogers Bridge Park | Shorty Howell Park | |
|---|---|---|
| Size | About 24 acres | 67 acres |
| Signature feature | Rebuilt pedestrian bridge, plus the "Shape of Time and Water" sculpture | 1.25-mile paved trail circling a lake |
| Dog policy | Chattapoochee Dog Park: fenced, off-leash, separate small and large dog areas | Leash required, no fenced off-leash area |
| Beyond the loop | Crosses into Johns Creek's Cauley Creek Park for a longer, partly shaded route | Self-contained loop, no through-connection |
| Also connects to | An access point for the Western Gwinnett Bikeway | Home fields for the Duluth Baseball and Softball Association |
Once you cross into Cauley Creek Park on the Johns Creek side, the trail surface changes to a rubberized path that's easier on knees and feet, and roughly half the route runs through shaded tree cover while the rest sits in open sun, worth knowing before a July afternoon walk. Restrooms sit at that trailhead, and the river stays in view for most of the crossing.
The bridge also ties into something bigger than a single park loop. The Western Gwinnett Bikeway, a separated multi-use path running along Peachtree Industrial Boulevard, completed its Phase III segment in December 2024, extending the route roughly five additional miles toward Suwanee. Rogers Bridge Park sits at a connection point for that corridor, which means the short park loop you started with can, if you want it to, turn into a much longer walk without ever getting in a car.
A Night Under the Stars, If You Want It
Rogers Bridge Park isn't only a daytime crossing. This past spring, the City of Duluth hosted two versions of its seasonal campout at the park: a come-and-go evening called S'mores in the Park on April 24, and an overnight version, S'mores 'N Snores, running April 25 into the morning of April 26. Both required advance registration and offered live music, crafts, food trucks, and a campfire by the river. It's a small detail, but it says something about how the park functions now that it didn't before 2023: it's a place people plan an evening around, not just pass through.
The Actual Choice
Neither park is better. They're built for different walks. Shorty Howell is the one you take when you want the same lap, the same lake, and a leash you don't have to think about. Rogers Bridge is the one you take when you want the walk to keep going, across a river, into another county, onto a bikeway that's still being extended.
The acreage on the sign never told you that. The bridge did.
Sugarloaf Country Club residents already know these two parks by name. If you're weighing a future move here, or you already call the community home and want a local's read on how the neighborhood actually lives day to day, Floyd Real Estate Group knows this stretch of Duluth from the inside. Book a Private Consultation whenever you're ready to talk.
