In the summer of I882, William Eliot Barrows, the
Willimantic Linen Co.'s president, built a park and dance pavilion at
the Oaks, on the southern side of Quercus Avenue. During the park‘s
opening night concert in August 1882, the Willimanlic Band entertained
the massed crowds with afternoon
and early evening concerts. The dance pavilion was so packed that
the orchestra had difficulty perfoming. The following Saturday evening
the Willimantic Band was able to perform on a 16-foot square stage
erected inside the pavilion. The parks opening night attraction was
William Barrows’ floodlit tableaux, a unique entertainment which was met
with gasps of elight. At
sunset Barrows projected paintings onto 20-foot-high canvases. The
bright beams which illuminated the pictures were provided by one of
Barrows’ own inventions, an “oxi~hydrogen” light. The performance was
repeated the following week. The word quickly spread and over 2,000
people packed the grounds and dance pavilion to few the outdoor
projection show. However, ‘rowdy elements’ caused problems, and before
the Oaks Park third summer concert of the season, Barrows’ posted the
following notice around Willimantic:
The Grove at the ‘Oaks’ is for your exclusive use and for such
friends you would be pleased to invite. It is hopeful you will find it a
source of pleasure and recreation. The Willimantic Band has been engaged
Io furnish music each
Saturday evening. Ten o’clock is the hour when " it is expected that all
persons will leave the grounds. Loud and boisterous talking and laughter
should not be indulged in as such conduct is annoying to the large
majority of the persons visiting the Grove, and it also leads to the
belief that some of you are ill bred. It should be remembered that this
Grove is not opened to the public and that it is the private property of
the Willimantic Linen Company, and that all persons except yourselves
and those whom you invite are trespassers.
The concerts and entertainments continued each Saturday during
the summer of l882, playing to packed crowds, However, on Oct. 14 there
was great disappointment when a downpour of rain caused a postponement.
The evening dance and concerts at the Oaks Park returned the following
summer, and a massive crowd came to the July 4, 1883 Independence Day
celebrations held at the old "Grove."
The Grove was Willimantic’s summer social center for the next
decade. lt housed every conceivable form of entertainment during the
summer months. The company also rented the park to other organizations,
particularly to the various societies of St. Joseph’s Church. However in
l892, after several rowdy, drunken brawls at the dance pavilion, the
park was closed down for “public safety."
On July 13, 1892, the Willimantic Chronicle reported on the
Willimantic Linen Co.’s decision: “The dance pavilion at the Oaks Park
will be taken down on
account of the fact that it is the
resort of many, on Sundays and
evenings, who get noisy and dis-
turb the occupants of the tenements of this vicinity.”
The Oaks Park met with an ignominious end, but because of its
early popularity, Barrows decided to build a trotting and park at the
east end of Willimantic at Sodom. He illuminated the racetrack with
electric arc lights, and the first race meeting held in July 1883
attracted an estimated crowd of more than
4,000. Barrows also built a vast exhibition hall. and invited
local farmers and civic leaders to hold an annual agricultural fair.
The first Willimantic Agricultural Show was held in October l883,
and the new park at Sodom became better known to two generations of
Willimantic residents as the
Willimantic Fairgrounds. The
following year the Willimantic Linen Co. laid a baseball diamond in the
center of the track and erected a grandstand. A professional baseball
team, the Willimantic Colts, was formed to compete in the
Connecticut Baseball League, and
it played its home games at the
new Fairgrounds baseball park
Agricultural fairs were held here
annually until l9l4, when the
Willimantic Linen Co.’s successors, the American Thread rebuilt
the grounds into a sporting
facility, which it renamed
Recreation Park.
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