Elizabeth Park Conservancy

Hartford

Elizabeth Park is a city park located in Hartford and West Hartford, Connecticut. It covers 102 acres and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The site was previously owned by financier Charles M. Pond of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and Hartford National Bank, and a treasurer of Connecticut. In 1894 he bequeathed his estate to the City of Hartford with the stipulation that it be named for his deceased wife, Elizabeth. The city took possession in 1897 and engaged the famed Olmsted and Son for landscaping. In 1904 the park's first superintendent, Theodore Wirth, created its renowned Rose Garden. It is the oldest municipal rose garden in the United States, currently containing about 15,000 bushes of 800 rose varieties. In the 1970s the city declared it could no longer afford the garden, and initially proposed plowing it under, until volunteers banded together and came to the rescue. In 1977 volunteers banded together with Vic Jarm to form the Friends of Elizabeth Park and save the Rose Garden. Their first mission was to raise $10,000 to replace many of the rose bushes that died from lack of care. Wikipedia