LOS ANGELES — Will Rogers State Historic Park, which has been closed since the Palisades fire ripped through it 10 months ago, will reopen to the public on Saturday, providing a sprawling green oasis in the devastated community.

About half of the park’s nine miles of hiking and equestrian hiking trails will open, as will the 99-year-old polo field, lawns and picnic spaces, according to California State Parks.

“The fire had an extraordinarily horrific impact ... but this fire did not extinguish the spirit of either the community or the park,” California State Parks Director Armando Quintero told reporters at the park Friday. “This is central to the community.”

The wooded, 186-acre park was originally cowboy-humorist Will Rogers’ ranch, where he lived with his wife and children in what was then the nascent community of Pacific Palisades until his death in 1935.

Rogers’ widow, Betty, deeded the ranch to the state just before her own death in 1944.

The Palisades fire incinerated Rogers’ century-old wooden ranch house — a place filled with Navajo rugs; custom, Western-style Monterey couches and chairs; and a vast book collection that included signed first editions by Helen Keller, Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry Houdini. Flames also tore through Rogers’ white-and-green horse stable, which had an elegant central rotunda.

In the surrounding park, around 300 trees — many of them planted in the 1920s and 1930s at Rogers’ behest — were so badly charred that they had to be removed, said Barbara Tejada, a State Parks cultural resources program supervisor.

It remains unclear what will become of the site where Rogers’ 31-room house once stood. But State Parks said the public will have access to trails and grounds as restoration work continues in the park, which will be open daily from 8 a.m. to sunset.

“As the future of the ranch is still uncertain, the Rogers family is pleased to see the park once again open to the public — a place that has long been and will continue to serve as a living tribute to Will Rogers himself,” Jennifer Rogers, the humorist’s great-granddaughter, told the Los Angeles Times.

For several months, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used just more than three acres of the park as a processing site for trees and shrubs from the fire zone. The site, south of Rogers’ polo field, also was used to pulverize concrete removed from burned properties.

That work concluded in early September, said Richard Fink II, the State Parks district superintendent for the Angeles District. Debris from more than 4,400 lots in Pacific Palisades was processed on site, including more than 10,000 felled trees, he said.

On Saturday, 4.2 miles of trails will reopen and 4.8 miles will remain closed as repair work continues. Some of the badly burned trails, Fink said, “will likely take years to recover.”

The popular Backbone Trail, which had a bridge that burned, will remain closed, as will the Rivas Canyon Trail. The looping trail to Inspiration Point will be partially open, though it will have intermittent closures as trail work planned before the fire continues, according to State Parks.

On Jan. 7, 10 State Parks employees — two of whom would lose their own homes to the fire — worked on site, packing what they could before the flames closed in, Tejada said.

Maintenance and restoration staffers started sprinklers atop the buildings and on hillsides, she said, and workers spent about 21/2 hours stuffing State Parks pickup trucks and personal vehicle with historic treasures.

They saved paintings, pottery, sculptures, Native American rugs, and the typewriter that Rogers used to compose his newspaper columns. But a tour favorite — a stuffed roping calf given by a friend, artist Ed Borein, who had grown tired of Rogers lassoing him — burned. So did the furniture, book collection, and a newly restored hand-crank barrel piano.

Tejada said she and other State Parks employees helped remove charred debris from the site — a process that took about a month because it was a historic site and had to be carefully picked through for artifacts.

Tejada said about 150 rescued items have been stored at the Statewide Museum Collections Center in Sacramento.

Will Rogers, an Oklahoman known as the Cherokee Kid, was the country’s first multimedia superstar. He was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, book author, radio broadcaster, and star of more than 70 movies who was, for a time, Hollywood’s highest-paid actor.

With his country twang and aw-shucks mannerisms belying a keen intellect, Will Rogers was the lasso-roping star of vaudeville and the Broadway stage. And his wry political commentary is widely considered the precursor to the modern late-night TV monologue. (“All I know is just what I read in the papers,” he once quipped, “and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.”)

Just after his death in a 1935 Alaska plane crash, Betty Rogers wrote in her memoir that the Palisades ranch “was the joy of his life.”

In the park, hundreds of mostly non-native — and notoriously flammable — eucalyptuses, were considered part of the cultural historic landscape, Tejada said. The fire killed many around Inspiration Loop Trail.

Rogers had personally directed them to be planted in specific places because they grew quickly, were tall and straight, and made good wind breaks. Although State Parks officials are trying to maintain as many of the original trees as possible because of their historical significance, there are ongoing discussions about what tree species should be replanted, Tejada said.

The 99-year-old polo field, where Rogers played with friends including Walt Disney and Clark Gable, is still green and largely unscathed, though the announcer’s booth and goalposts burned. It is the only outdoor polo field in Los Angeles County.

Fink said with a laugh that equestrians have been sneaking onto the polo field for weeks, even though the park was closed. Hikers and dog walkers have been coming in, too, and “although the gates aren’t open, in a way, it’s been really nice to see people using the park again, seeing horses back ... because people really care about this place and have a deep connection to it.”

On Saturday, the nonprofit Will Rogers Ranch Foundation, which supports the park and promotes the legacy of the famous cowboy, will lead guided history walks and a mindfulness stroll to Inspiration Point. There also will be polo demonstrations and lawn games.

In 2006, more than 2,000 people attended a grand rededication of the grounds and reopening of the ranch house, which had been closed for three years amid a painstaking $5-million restoration. That ceremony included bands and trick-roping demonstrations and a speech by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Saturday’s event will be more of “a soft opening,” said Larry Nemecek, president of the Will Rogers Ranch Foundation’s board of directors.

“We’re keeping this low-key intentionally,” Nemecek said. “We wanted to reflect on what we’ve lost and also what the future can be.”

He added: “Whatever we do in the future, Will Rogers State Historic Park is not just going to be a name on a sign. That’s Will and Betty’s place.”

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