This fall marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of Connecticut State Park system.  On September 1st, 1913 the State Park Commission, by act of the state legislature, officially came into being.  Before the month was out, on September 29, in the old court house building in New Haven, the six appointed commissioners held their first meeting and the Connecticut State Park system was underway.

It had taken some time just to get to the starting point.  Four years earlier, in 1909, there had been a proposal to protect reaches of the lower Connecticut River from ongoing development. that did not meet with success. Two years later, in 1911, the state was presented with a gift of land atop Mount Tom in Washington to be used specifically as a state park.  Since there was no park commission at that time, the gift resided with the Forestry Commission.  Later that year, a three-man temporary Park Commission was formed to assess the practicality, need, and likelihood of success of a permanent park commission.  Not surprisingly, when the report came back in early 1913, it glowed with the prospect of parks in the state.  And appropriately so, since New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island had already established state parks and the concept was growing nationally.

From the very first commission meeting, the six new permanent Park Commissioners wanted to purchase a piece of real estate to launch the state into land ownership.  They quickly realized, however, that the first order of business should be a complete inventory of the state's resources to prioritize their work in capturing and preserving pieces of the Connecticut landscape. They needed a field man. 

Enter Albert Turner

The Commissioners were well-connected men with their feet on the ground and noses to the wind. Astutely selected from around the state, the six hailed from Cornwall to the west, Putnam to the east, as well as Hartford, Middletown, and New Haven.  But the gap in their expertise was familiarity with the state's natural resources. They closed that gap by hiring Litchfield native Albert M. Turner. A Yale grad with an engineering degree, Turner, 46, began his field work immediately in the spring of 1914. He was guided by one premise: the nearly universal desire to be near the water, and the most valued among our water locations was Long Island Sound saltwater frontage.  

Litchfield, Connecticut native Albert M. Turner   spent 28 years of his adult life dedicated to the   concept and implementation of a   diverse and accessible park system in the state. Photo Credit: DEEP Parks Division, Historic Archives

Astounded by his findings, he at first described what he saw as disheartening. Turner, born in 1868, grew up knowing the Connecticut coast as an open area which anyone could access at any time. It had only been since the late 1890s that the shoreline had begun to acquire value and precipitate into the world of private property. The world of 1914 was a very different place than that of his younger days. He described his initial shoreline investigations:

I found the shore of Long Island Sound an almost endless row of individual vagaries, nondescript caricatures of habitations, alternating with miles of sea walls, land walls and hedges, behind which towered huge piles of granite, brick or concrete, which I judged also to be habitations, though the casual democratic eye might frequently conclude otherwise.   

Despite his disappointment, he had to formulate a plan.  He was able to shake off his surprise and conclude what was needed amid what was available:

While the number of (park) sites to be recommended was at first indeterminate, it was further considered that as a whole they should present adequate examples of the various types of our shore, the high weather-beaten rocks, the bluff upland with gravel and boulders below, and sandy beach with salt meadow and tidal creeks. Also that each site should possess some particular charm of its own, in distinction from the others, and that they should be distributed as evenly as might be along the length of the State.

Turner's three principal locations are easy for us to recognize today. Starting from the east, the first must-have coastal locale he identified was Bluff Point in Groton. Replete with bluffs, upland, rocky coast and small pockets of sandy beach, this was the perfect fit for his coastal recommendations.

Second, in his search for significant open spaces, Turner arrived at the long beach in Madison, even then known as Hammonasset, and noted:

It is about as open a place as I have found in Connecticut. It consists about equally of low-lying upland and salt meadow, with a mile of sandy bathing beach equal to any in the State.

It then took some serious consideration to identify and gain a toehold on the third coastal location, beyond the urban buildup of New Haven and Bridgeport, but Turner found it in Westport:

salt meadow and beach sand at the easterly end of the tract known as Sherwood Island, which is here separated from the mainland only by a small tidal creek. Large tracts of undeveloped and desirable upland lie directly to the west.

As it turned out, the scouting and recommendations were the easy part.

A very early picture of the first park land purchased at Sherwood Island in Westport. The land just beyond the creek in the foreground was   the first five acres of state park property.  Photo Credit: DEEP Parks Division, Historic Archives

The First Purchase

Being well connected is always a good thing when land purchases are the subject, and the State Park Commissioners were well connected. They learned in late June, 1914 of a coming foreclosure opportunity on a shoreline property at Sherwood Island in Westport. Turner had scouted this earlier in the year and, given their budget, their desire to acquire property, and Turner's reminders that coastal land values were and should be a priority, they agreed in principal to the purchase. And when it was recorded in the land records on December 22, 1914, five acres at Sherwood Island became the first state park property. But it wasn't quite a park yet since there was no access. In fact, the public would not have access to Sherwood Island until 1932.

Growing up

When the Park Commission completed its first five years in 1918, Turner did a review. There were then 15 state parks as the Commission had been busy acquiring hill tops, Connecticut River properties and brook-side lands. But there still was no coastal access. Turner made it clear that the coast was a top priority and should be acted upon immediately, before rising land values pushed everything out of fiscal reach. Heeding his pronouncement, within 19 months the Commission opened the gates at the newly conceived of, acquired, planned, executed, and constructed Hammonasset Beach State Park. From the moment it opened in July 1920 until this day, Hammonasset set the standard for state park beaches, and it was, and has remained, the most visited of all the state parks.

Beachgoers in the mid 1920s enjoy the sunshine and fresh air at   Hammonasset Beach State Park in Madison.  Photo Credit: DEEP Parks Division, Historic Archives

For many years the various pieces of Sherwood Island real estate continued to coalesce into a park for public use. But by far and away, Bluff Point has the record for longest-to-obtain. First envisioned as a coastal park in 1914, it was not until 1963 that it was actually acquired, a wait of 49 and a half years!

Today

In large measure, the park system that we have today, including the wide variety of coastal parks, is the vision of Albert Turner.  His recommendations of acquisition amounted to a well-crafted assemblage of uplands, river lands, hilltops, stream valleys, and coastal lands. Taken together, these have produced a system of state parks upon which the diversity of the Connecticut landscape is both protected and enjoyed by the visitors of today and will continue to be by their children and grandchildren well into the future.

To learn more about the Connecticut State Park Centennial year and activities, please visit our web page: www.ct.gov/deep/stateparks100    

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