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Coltsville National Historical Park Yo U R Park Coltsville National Historical Park Yo u r Park A report prepared for the people of Hartford to brainstorm early ideas for the recently authorized Coltsville National Historical Park in Hartford, Connecticut in a collaboration between the National Park Service, the Van Alen Institute and Performing Parks. 2016 From the National Park Service Next Parks: Imagining the Next Parks: Imagining the Future of Future of Parks Parks takes this collaboration one step further to push beyond preconceptions The National Park Service (NPS) and Van of what national parks – and any park or Alen Institute launched its partnership public space – can be, and to reimagine in 2008 through the highly acclaimed how these places shape and impact our “Designing the Parks” initiative, a program everyday lives. to advance a framework for planning and This initiative includes a series of designing public parks that are innovative, stakeholder workshops focused on a new responsive, respectful, sustainable, national park aimed at developing a range and inclusive. The findings from this of design and engagement strategies to program led to a design competition shape this park as well as future NPS led by the two organizations in 2012 sites. The park that serves as the point of called Parks for the People: A Student focus for this project is Coltsville National Competition to Reimagine America’s Historical Park in Hartford, Connecticut. National Parks, an initiative to engage This park represents a 21st-century model young people, especially students and that relies on managing the national park young professionals, through design in partnership with nearby organizations, studios and competitions. The 2014 design community groups, local governments, competition National Parks Now, focusing and others. Unlike traditional parks specifically on four national parks in the like Yellowstone, Acadia, and Yosemite, northeast region, was a continuation of where the government owns the land this partnership. The competition engaged and manages everything within its emerging designers in innovative projects boundary, the NPS owns a limited amount that further strengthen the national park of land at Coltsville. This positions NPS visitor experience, the unique identity of as a convener and coalition builder in each place, and create opportunities for collaboration with a range of public, public access, interpretive choice, inventive private and non-profit organizations. use of technology, and visitor-directed These include partnerships and affiliations park activities. in conservation, preservation, recreation, interpretation, scientific investigation 3 From the National Park Service and education at every level of civic the site of labor disputes and negotiations, engagement– each with a distinct role leading to the formation of workers’ and complementary function to manage unions that became increasingly common a park area. Such strong, ambitious park throughout the twentieth century. Today, visions require new thinking and different the neighborhoods surrounding Coltsville stewardship models that fully represent remain primarily working class or low- the nation’s ethnically and culturally income, with predominantly Latino, diverse communities. West Indian, and African American NPS and Van Alen engaged a populations. team called Performing Parks – a In addition to bringing jobs and group of designers, educators, artists, industry to the city of Hartford, the Colt anthropologists, and engagement Armory played a pivotal role in developing specialists – to facilitate public engagement precision manufacturing, an approach that and develop ideas for innovative visitor favored the production of interchangeable experiences, partnerships, narratives, and parts over the time-costly practice of places at the park, as well as strategies individually crafting each piece. The for connecting these elements to a broad, company applied its interchangeable-parts diverse audience. The multidisciplinary techniques to a wide variety of consumer nature of this team provides multiple products and the Colt complex became lenses through which the NPS, its an “incubator” facility for other inventors potential partners, and the communities and entrepreneurs. This established surrounding park sites can reimagine Hartford as an industrial hub, attracting what parks can be, who uses them, and other entrepreneurs – from manufacturers what they can do there. of sewing machines, to typewriters, to bicycles and automobiles - to set up shop Coltsville in Hartford, in the city. Connecticut The success of precision manufacturing spurred interest throughout the New Coltsville National Historical Park is England region, and, by the late 19th a 260-acre site located in the Sheldon century, armories and other factories Charter Oak neighborhood of Hartford, along the Connecticut River Valley from CT. The Colt Firearms Complex was much southern Vermont through Connecticut more than a factory – the Colt family built were adopting precision manufacturing out a small ‘company town’, including as their modus operandi. The innovations worker housing and eventually a church, in this region contributed greatly to Parish house, baseball field, and other the American Industrial Revolution, landscape features. The vision for the propelling the nation’s economic growth complex was to provide for its workers’ and poising it to become a world power. every need, from shelter to spirituality to Precision manufacturing allowed Colt recreation. The Colt Company and other Firearms to produce at volume, and the industrial companies provided work that company became a primary firearms made the area attractive to waves of ethnic supplier during America’s westward groups including Polish, Irish, Italian, expansion efforts as well as the Civil German, and Jewish immigrants. As the War. After Samuel Colt passed away in company’s importance and workforce 1862, his wife Elizabeth Colt took over increased, Coltsville eventually served as the business and played a major role in 4 From the National Park Service further developing Colt’s Patent Firearms programming collaborations with Manufacturing Company and positioning institutional and community partners at the business for even greater success. The local, regional, and national scales. company attracted top design talent and The legislation that the Congress began experimenting with a wider range passed and the President signed only of firearms products, from machine guns “authorized” Coltsville National Historical to automatic rifles to semi-automatic Park. The authorizing legislation identifies pistols. Under Elizabeth Colt’s watch “Conditions for Establishment” necessary and beyond her death in 1901, the Colt for park establishment. Several tasks brand became increasingly associated have already been accomplished but the with innovation and variety as well as remaining steps include: quality. Though still in operation today, the location of the Colt Factory was moved ­­ Agreement with the City of Hartford to following Elizabeth Colt’s passing, and ensure that public property, primarily Colt the family’s mansion, Armsmear, was Park, is managed consistent with its new transferred to Colt Trust, while 140 acres of status as a national park and that Hartford the landed estate was donated to the city’s historic preservation regulations work to parks department and became Colt Park. protect historic resources associated with Coltsville National Historical Park plans to Coltsville. offer a window into both the technological Agreement with Colt Gateway LLC and marketing innovations that spurred (Owners of the historic Colt Armory) to the success of the Colt Fire Arms secure the donation of at least 10,000 Company, as well as a broader history of square feet of space for a visitor center. mass production and modern capitalism. Transfer of property and buildings to the National Park Service for the visitor center. A National Historic Park at Coltsville Beyond park “establishment”, there is the complex work of developing a vision Coltsville National Historical Park in for this new unit of the National Park Hartford, Connecticut was authorized Service. This report represents the very by Congress in December, 2014. It ‘beginning of a beginning’ of this process. was the result of nearly fifteen years The stories, ideas, and recommendations of planning and advocacy led by a laid out in the following pages are drawn coalition of stakeholders committed to from a range of perspectives offered by the bringing national designation to the participants of two day-long workshops in Coltsville Historic District. The legislation November and December 2015. The ideas authorizing Coltsville specifically are intended to inspire further dialogue mentions providing visitor services for and collaboration between Coltsville the Colt Armory, Church of the Good National Historical Park and its future Shepherd, Caldwell / Colt Memorial Parish local, regional, and national partners. House, Colt Park, Potsdam Cottages, Armsmear and the James Colt House. However, the park is also envisioned as a “partnership park,” and the National Park Service will work both within and beyond these buildings and boundaries through 5 6 Preface Performing Parks The name of our team, ‘Performing Parks,’ by the Van Alen Institute and the National grew from a discussion about the ways in Park Service, and is composed of Quilian which American parks and their idyllic Riano, Adeola Enigbokan, Annie Barrett, landscapes tend to endorse
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