Osbornedale State Park is a public recreation area occupying on the east bank of the Housatonic River primarily in the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Derby, Connecticut Derby is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, approximately 8 miles west-northwest of New Haven. It is located in southwest Connecticut at the confluence of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Rivers. It borders the cities of Anson ...

, with a small portion in Ansonia. The state park includes the historic Osborne Homestead, the Kellogg Environmental Center, and an extensive system of hiking trails. The park is managed by the

Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) is a state agency in the US state of Connecticut. The department oversees the state's natural resources and environment and regulates public utilities and energy policy. It ...

History

The park was formerly the estate of the Osborne family, the owners of

metalworking Metalworking is the process of shaping and reshaping metals to create useful objects, parts, assemblies, and large scale structures. As a term it covers a wide and diverse range of processes, skills, and tools for producing objects on every scal ...

and

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

product

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

in the

Naugatuck Valley The Naugatuck River Valley is the watershed area of the Naugatuck River in the western part of Connecticut. The Naugatuck Valley straddles parts of Litchfield County, New Haven, and Fairfield counties. The Route 8 corridor and Waterbury Branch ...

area.

Frances Osborne Kellogg Frances Eliza Osborne Kellogg (May 11, 1876 – September 26, 1956) was an American industrialist, dairy farmer, and philanthropist. Running large firms in the US and UK, Kellogg also bred award-winning Holstein cattle. Her family estate became ...

and her husband, Waldo Kellogg, assembled the property through the acquisition of several farms. The Kelloggs operated two successful farming operations on the land under the name of Osbornedale Farms. One farm specialized in breeding Osbornedale

Holstein cow Holstein Friesians (often shortened to Holsteins in North America, while the term Friesians is often used in the UK and Ireland) are a breed of dairy cattle that originated in the Dutch provinces of North Holland and Friesland, and Schleswig-Ho ...

s and the other produced

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

from a herd of

Jersey cow The Jersey is a British breed of small dairy cattle from Jersey, in the British Channel Islands. It is one of three Channel Island cattle breeds, the others being the Alderney – now extinct – and the Guernsey. It is highly productive – co ...

s. Prior uses of the park land included

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

in the years after the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

and bottling of spring water. The estate was given to the state of Connecticut by Frances Osborne Kellogg upon her death in 1956.

Activities and amenities

The park preserves the historic Osbornedale house, which offers tours, as well as an adjacent property that is part of the state's resident curator program. The Kellogg Environmental Center offers educational programs. Hiking trails, a pond for fishing and ice skating, and picnicking facilities are also available.

References

External links

Osbornedale State Park
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
Osbornedale State Park Map
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection {{authority control State parks of Connecticut Parks in New Haven County, Connecticut Derby, Connecticut Ansonia, Connecticut Protected areas established in 1956 1956 establishments in Connecticut