Drive south on I-90 past the 27th Street exit and you'll catch it out the passenger window for about four seconds: a stretch of cottonwoods and open riverbank between the highway and the Yellowstone, with a gravel boat ramp poking down to the water. Most people who've lived in Billings for more than a few years have made that same four-second pass a hundred times without ever turning off at Charlene Street to see what's actually down there. What's down there, as of this year, is what's been down there for a while: a boat ramp, two vault toilets, a network of bumpy dirt roads, and a paved bike path running along the park's south edge between the trees and the river.
That's not neglect. It's a park that got a full master plan, a construction budget, and a funding source six years ago and still can't break ground on its first phase, because the one thing it's been waiting on isn't a city council vote or a grant application. It's a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Town That Lost to the Railroad
Coulson Park sits on ground that used to have a name of its own. Before there was a Billings, there was Coulson, a river town that grew up on the Yellowstone's bank and figured it had a real shot at becoming the region's railroad hub. The Northern Pacific had other plans. The railroad held claim to two sections of land about two miles west of Coulson, and building a new town there made the company more money than running track into an existing one. For a short stretch the two towns coexisted, connected by a trolley, before most of Coulson's residents drifted west into the booming new town of Billings. Coulson itself faded out entirely by the 1930s.
A plaque near the boat ramp is one of the only markers left of any of that. Across the river, the sandstone faces of Sacrifice Cliff and Skeleton Cliff carry their own older history, tied by Crow legend to a smallpox epidemic that struck the area long before either town existed. It's the kind of layered backdrop that a lot of Billings residents drive past without knowing it's there.
How an Oil Spill Ended Up Funding a Park
The money behind Coulson Park's redevelopment traces back to an accident nobody wanted. In 2011, an ExxonMobil pipeline called Silvertip ruptured upstream near Laurel and spilled roughly 63,000 gallons of oil into the Yellowstone River, closing Coulson Park during the cleanup. Two years later, Exxon agreed to set aside $2.3 million as part of a broader settlement for river recreation projects along the Yellowstone.
Out of that pool, the Billings Parks and Recreation Department secured $110,000 earmarked specifically for Coulson Park's first phase of construction. In 2018, the department also landed a $45,000 grant to fund a formal master plan, matched by another $45,000 from Big Sky Economic Development, which brought in design firm DHM Design to draw up the long-term vision.
That plan, revealed at a public meeting and approved by the Billings City Council in March 2020, broke the park's future into eight phases:
- Phase 1 – upgraded boat ramp, two new restrooms, day-use picnic and games area
- Phase 2 – site infrastructure, a pond, a creek
- Phases 3 through 7 – a bike track, dog park, sculpture park, covered arbor for small concerts and performances, historical markers
- Phase 8 – redesign of the Yellowstone River bridge itself to better accommodate bike and pedestrian traffic
At the time, the full eight-phase build carried a price tag between $13.8 million and $16.3 million, and Eric Meadows, the DHM Design lead on the project, told reporters he expected it could take up to a decade to build out completely. Six years into that decade-long estimate, only the smallest, cheapest phase is even close to breaking ground.
Where Phase One Actually Stands Right Now
Here's the detail that should reframe how anyone living near the park thinks about the delay. According to the parks department's own project page, updated in April 2026, the plans and specifications for Phase 1 are finished. The scope hasn't changed since 2020: an ADA-accessible restroom structure, a rebuilt boat ramp, parking, and a picnic area. The budget hasn't changed either. It's still $110,000, the same figure attached to this project back when the master plan was first approved.
What's changed is nothing, because the city still can't put the project out for bid until it receives a final permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. That's the whole holdup. Not a funding gap, not a stalled council vote, not competing priorities eating the budget. A single federal sign-off on work happening in and around a river channel, which is exactly the kind of review the Corps is set up to slow-walk regardless of how small the project actually is.
For a resident who's been asking "what's taking so long" for half a decade, that's a different answer than most people probably assumed. This isn't a project that got shelved. It's a project that's been fully designed, fully budgeted, and fully approved by the city since 2020, sitting in a queue that has nothing to do with Billings at all.
Charlene Street Isn't Fully On Board
Even once that permit clears, Phase 1 isn't a guaranteed crowd-pleaser for everyone closest to it. At a public meeting covered by the Billings Gazette, a resident of Charlene Street, which borders the park, raised concerns about the road's one-way access if visitor traffic increases. Another resident worried that paving the access road would turn it into what they described as a "race track" for people rushing to the boat ramp.
Those aren't abstract objections. Charlene Street today is exactly the kind of low-traffic, dead-end residential street that made living near an underused park appealing in the first place. A rebuilt boat ramp with real parking is going to pull more boat trailers and day visitors down that same road, and the people who live there are the ones who'll feel that shift first. It's a reminder that finishing Phase 1 solves one problem for the city and creates a smaller, more personal one for the handful of households closest to the gate.
What's Actually There If You Go Today
None of this means the park is unusable in the meantime. The existing boat ramp still puts anglers and kayakers directly onto the Yellowstone, and locals frequent that stretch of water for a reason. The paved multi-use trail along the park's southern edge connects into the broader Billings trail system, making it a legitimate option for a longer bike ride or a quiet morning walk with a river view and the Rims as a backdrop. There are no permanent picnic tables or playground equipment yet, so anyone planning to stay a while is better off bringing a blanket and their own folding chairs.
It's a rougher, more do-it-yourself version of what the master plan eventually promises. For now, that's also its appeal. Fewer people know to stop here, which means the fishing spots along the bank rarely feel crowded, and the open riverside space is the kind of thing that gets harder to find as other parts of the city fill in.
Worth Watching, Not Worth Waiting On
If the Army Corps permit clears in the next year, Phase 1 could move to bid relatively fast, since the design work and the money have both been sitting ready since 2020. If it doesn't, Coulson Park stays exactly what it's been for years: a 50-acre stretch of river access that locals treat as a known quantity rather than a destination, sitting on top of a town most residents have never heard of, waiting on paperwork that has nothing to do with Billings.
If you're keeping an eye on what's happening in the neighborhoods around the river, or you're weighing what living near a stretch like this actually means day to day, the team at Heidi Brosovich and the Brosovich Real Estate Team spends a lot of time in these corners of Billings and is glad to talk through what you're seeing. If you're further along and curious what your own place is worth in today's market, you can always request a free home valuation and get a straight answer.
