Capitol Park | |
Location | Roughly bounded by Capitol St., Kennebec River, Union St., and State St., Augusta, Maine |
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Coordinates | 44°18′23″N69°46′43″W / 44.30639°N 69.77861°W |
Area | 20 acres (8.1 ha) |
Built | 1827 |
Architect | Olmsted Brothers |
Part of | Capitol Complex Historic District (ID01001417) |
NRHP reference No. | 89000252 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 7, 1989 |
Designated CP | December 31, 2001 |
Capitol Park is a state-owned public park in Maine's state capitol complex on the west side of Augusta, Maine. Set aside in 1827, when the complex was established, the park, set between the Maine State House and the Kennebec River, served as a parade ground and encampment site during the American Civil War, and saw agricultural use before being formally designed as a park in the 1920s by the Olmsted Brothers. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. [1]
Capitol Park is located on the western bank of the Kennebec River, from which it is separated by a former railroad right-of-way. It is about 20 acres (8.1 ha) in size, and roughly rectangular in shape, bounded by Capitol, State, and Union Streets. The terrain slopes upward from the river to State Street, which separates the park from the grounds of the Maine State House. [2]
The people of Augusta gave the state the parcel of land that makes up the park and state house grounds in 1827, laying out State Street to provide access. The state planted a line of trees along State Street, and also established a boulevard from the state house site to the river. As part of the landscaping of the state house grounds, Charles Bulfinch articulated a design for the park that established a series of terraces descending to the river. In 1842 a granite monument to Governor Enoch Lincoln was installed near the park's eastern edge. By the 1850s, a second line of trees had been added, with paths along each row providing the main circulation pattern. All of this landscaping was lost when the area was used as a staging ground for the state's troops in the American Civil War. [2]
After the Civil War, the park was plowed, and briefly used for agriculture. By 1878 it had again been converted into a park, with a somewhat similar circulation pattern to its prewar state. In the 1920s, the state hired the Olmsted Brothers to prepare a master landscaping plan for its properties, which included the park, the state house grounds, and the adjacent governor's mansion. Work on the park to implement this design was overseen by Portland landscape architect Carl Rust Parker. [2]
Augusta is the capital of the U.S. state of Maine and the county seat of and most populous city in Kennebec County. The city's population was 18,899 at the 2020 census, making it the twelfth-most populous city in Maine, and third-least populous state capital in the United States after Montpelier, Vermont, and Pierre, South Dakota.
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the United States. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his partner Calvert Vaux. Olmsted and Vaux's first project was New York's Central Park, which led to many other urban park designs, including Prospect Park in Brooklyn and Cadwalader Park in Trenton, New Jersey. He headed the preeminent landscape architecture and planning consultancy of late 19th century United States, which was carried on and expanded by his sons, Frederick Jr. and John C., under the name Olmsted Brothers.
The Olmsted Brothers company was a landscape architectural firm in the United States, established in 1898 by brothers John Charles Olmsted (1852–1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (1870–1957), sons of the landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site is a United States National Historic Site located in Brookline, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) is recognized as the founder of American landscape architecture and the nation's foremost parkmaker of the 19th century. In 1883, Olmsted moved his home to suburban Boston and established "Fairsted", the world's first full-scale professional office for the practice of landscape design. Over the course of the next century, his sons and successors expanded and perpetuated Olmsted's design ideals, philosophy, and influence.
The Maine State House in Augusta, Maine, is the state capitol of the State of Maine. The building was completed in 1832, one year after Augusta became the capital of Maine. Built using Maine granite, the State House was based on the design of the Massachusetts State House.
The Blaine House, also known as the James G. Blaine House, is the official residence of the governor of Maine and their family. The executive mansion was officially declared the residence of the governor in 1919 with the name "Blaine House". It is located at Capitol and State streets in Augusta, across the street from the Maine State House.
Fort Halifax is a former British colonial outpost on the banks of the Sebasticook River, just above its mouth at the Kennebec River, in Winslow, Maine. Originally built as a wooden palisaded fort in 1754, during the French and Indian War, only a single blockhouse survives. The oldest blockhouse in the United States, it is preserved as Fort Halifax State Historic Site, and is open to the public in the warmer months. The fort guarded Wabanaki canoe routes that reached to the St. Lawrence and Penobscot Valleys via the Chaudière-Kennebec and Sebasticook-Souadabscook rivers. The blockhouse was declared a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1968.
The Director's Quarters, Togus Veterans' Administration Center, previously known as the Governor's House, is a historic house on the grounds of the Veterans Administration (VA) facility in Togus, Maine. The house, built in 1869, is historically significant as the only surviving structure of the first National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, established at Togus in 1866 to serve American Civil War veterans. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974. It is a contributing element of the historic district encompassing the Togus VA campus.
Kennebec Arsenal is a historic arsenal on Arsenal Street in Augusta, Maine. Largely developed between 1828 and 1838 in part because of border disputes with neighboring New Brunswick, it was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 2000 as a good example of a nearly intact early 19th-century munitions storage facility. The arsenal property was garrisoned until 1901, after which it was turned over to the State of Maine as an expansion of the adjacent Maine State Hospital. The state for many years housed mental health patients there.
The U.S. Capitol Gatehouses and Gateposts — designed circa 1827 by celebrated architect Charles Bulfinch — originally stood on the grounds of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Two of the gatehouses are listed on the National Register of Historic Places in their new locations.
St. Mary's Church is a Roman Catholic church at 41 Western Avenue in Augusta, Maine. Built in 1926, it is one of the city's finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
The Masonic Hall is a historic commercial and fraternal society building at 313-321 Water Street in downtown Augusta, Maine. Built in 1894, it is a significant work of Boston architect John Spofford, and a good local example of restrained Renaissance Revival architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.
The L.C. Bates Museum is an early 20th-century natural history and cultural museum in Hinckley, Maine, United States, located on the campus of Good Will-Hinckley. It was founded by George Walter Hinckley (1853–1950), as a part of the Good Will Home, a pioneering residential and educational institution for underprivileged children.
The Bond Street Historic District is a residential historic district on Bond Street in Augusta, Maine, United States. The district comprises seven residential buildings built primarily in 1884 by Edwards Manufacturing Company, which was a textile manufacturer in the area. The buildings housed mill workers and their families from 1878, when the first building was constructed until 1946, when the properties were sold to private owners. The buildings are the only surviving mill worker housing in Augusta. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
The High Street Historic District encompasses a well-preserved 19th-century residential area of Camden, Maine. Extending along High Street, the district has maintained its character since the 1920s, despite encroaching commercialization of nearby areas, and retains a cross-section of architecture of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, and enlarged in 1999 to include the Olmsted Brothers-designed Harbor Park at Main and Atlantic.
The Capitol Complex Historic District encompasses the principal historic elements of Maine's state administration complex at Capitol and State Streets in Augusta, Maine. Included in the district are the Maine State House, Capitol Park, The Blaine House, the Burton Cross Office Building, and a number of state-owned 19th century residences in the vicinity of the Blaine House. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
The Guy P. Gannett House is a historic house at 184 State Street in Augusta, Maine. Built in 1911 to a design by Boston architect James Thomas, it is the only significant example of Mediterranean Revival architecture in Kennebec County. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
The Maine Insane Hospital, later the Augusta Mental Health Institute (AMHI), was a psychiatric hospital in Augusta, Maine. It was the principal facility for the care and treatment of Maine's mentally ill from 1840 to 2004, and its surviving buildings represent the oldest surviving complex of mental care facilities in the United States. The complex is located on the east bank of the Kennebec River, immediately south of the former Kennebec Arsenal, and now primarily houses state offices. In 2004, the hospital was replaced by the Riverview Psychiatric Center, located just to the south. The hospital's core complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, with the listing enlarged to encompass the entire campus in 2001.
The Tappan-Viles House is a historic house at 150 State Street in Augusta, Maine. Built in 1816 and restyled several times, the house exhibits an eclectic combination of Federal, Italianate, and Colonial Revival styles, the latter contributed by architect John Calvin Stevens. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982; it is now part of a bank complex.
The Winthrop Street Historic District encompasses a predominantly residential area of Augusta, Maine encapsulating about 100 years of residential home development. The area features high-quality and well-preserved examples of homes from the early 19th to early 20th centuries, as well as two churches and the Lithgow Library. The district occupies a roughly triangular area west of downtown Augusta and north of the state capitol district. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, and enlarged slightly in 2008.