The History of Seaside Park
Welcome
to Seaside Park
With
its 325 acres of lush lawns, shady glades and sports fields rolling toward Long
Island Sound, Seaside Park is without peer on the Eastern Seaboard. Visitors
are delighted by the park's beaches, surf and sunshine along three miles of
sparkling coastline. The park was laid out just after the Civil War by Calvert
Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, whose other efforts include Manhattan's Central
Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Their 19th century landscapes have proved
timeless as they charm each new generation of park-goers.
At
the western end of the park is Fayerweather Island. Walkers can visit this
natural wildlife preserve by crossing the breakwater rocks. The island's lighthouse
guided navigators into Black Rock Harbor from 1823 to 1932.
Bridgeport's most famous resident,
the 19th century circus impresario PT Barnum is largely responsible for the
development of the park. Once pasture land, wood lots and salt marshes, Barnum
envisioned the first marine "rural" park in the United States. He
recalled its former state in his autobiography:
Up to 1865 the shore of Bridgeport
west of the public wharves, and washed by the water of Long Island Sound, was
inaccessible to carriages or even to the horsemen, and almost impossible for
pedestrians. The shore edge was in fact strewn with rocks and boulders, which
made it like "JORDAN" in the song, and exceedingly- "hard road
to travel." A narrow lane reaching down to the shore enabled parties to
drive near to the water for purposes of clamming, and occasionally bathing; but
it was all claimed as private property by the land proprietors, whose farm
extended down to the water's edge... I was satisfied that a most lovely park
might be, and ought to be, opened along the whole waterfront as far as the
western boundary line of Bridgeport... I immediately began to agitate the
subject in the Bridgeport papers, and also in daily conversations with such of
my fellow citizens as I thought would take an earnest and immediate interest in
the enterprise...
The park took its present shape
between 1865 and 1920. Before 1869 the land west of the statue of Elias Howe
was under water. The area between Park and Iranistan Avenue was the first to be
drained and dyked. (The Mirror Lake, also known as the Mummy Pond, is an
essential part of that drainage system.) In 1878, the land between Iranistan
Avenue and the former bathhouse took its present form. The city acquired the
waterbound area that comprises the west beach and Fayerweather Island in 1911,
and completed construction of a seawall in 1919 that connected to the
mainland.
Barnum meant for Seaside Park to be
his legacy for future generations, and the strollers, bathers, athletes,
fishermen and picnickers who enjoy the park today owe a nod to his memory. In
his autobiography he expressed the hope that:
When the hand that now pens these lines is stilled forever, and thousands look... across the water to Long Island shore and over the groves and walks and drives of the beautiful grounds at their Feet, it may be a source of gratification and pride to my posterity to hear the expressions of gratitude that possibly will be expressed to the memory of their ancestor who secured to all future generations the benefits and blessings of Sea-Side Park...