City Park
The Belfast Ladies Improvement Society lobbied the city council in April of 1904 to establish a seaside park for the benefit of the public. The purchase price of the 15 acre lot was $3,000 and, once secured, prominent Boston landscape architect E. L. Beard drew up the park plans. Through the next two years volunteers, using donated materials, planted trees and built the roads. In 1936, a WPA project added a sea wall and saltwater swimming pool (photo c. 1915). Inset:
Edgar F. Hanson's mansion, across the street from the park, was a showplace at the city's southern entrance from 1892 until 1923, when it was destroyed by fire. Hanson, flamboyant and outspoken, served as a ten-term mayor. He was a manager of Dana's Sarsaparilla Co., a newspaper publisher, and a proponent of the building of the SS Belfast (panel #30).
Marker is on High Street just north of Wright Street, on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
