Rockwell Park, Bristol, Conn. 121.

Rockwell Park, Bristol, Conn. 121.

View of a newly completed pond and its graded banks, with stone structures on the far shore. This image is part of a series made by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to cover New England or upstate New York. The quest for images that would be saleable as postcards resulted in the documentation of small towns and small town life at the turn of the 20th century. As the photos were shot, the glass plates were promptly sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street. The evolution of this public park is described in cthistory.org: "In 1888, Albert F. Rockwell and his brother Edward moved to Bristol, Connecticut, founded the New Departure Bell Company, and started manufacturing doorbells. Their business prospered and they soon diversified into the production of bicycle bells and brakes. After they renamed the business the New Departure Manufacturing Company, the brothers began making ball bearings for use in expensive automobiles. By the time Albert F. Rockwell retired in 1913, the company was shipping its bells, brakes, and ball bearings all over the world. Sheffield Arnold’s Design In 1914, shortly after his retirement, Rockwell gave the city of Bristol 80 acres to develop as a public park. (He later added about 15 more.) The park was designed by the Boston landscape architect Sheffield Arnold and completed in 1920. (In addition to Rockwell Park, Arnold designed Stanley Park in New Britain and the campus of the Loomis Institute (now Loomis-Chaffee) in Windsor.) The Bristol property, left largely in its original wooded state, soon attracted scores of local nature lovers. In addition, Arnold’s design provided winding drives and an excavated lagoon with a bathing beach and bathhouses. The park quickly became a popular venue for company outings, barbecues, clambakes, and band concerts. While Rockwell focused on the natural environment, his wife, Nettie, took a special interest in the children’s playground. Nettie purchased the most modern equipment available for the playground, which an early article described as “the best of its kind to be found anywhere.” Following her husband’s death in 1925, she continued to provide financial support for the park, and she left the Bristol park system a generation endowment upon her own death in 1938."