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A LOOK BACK

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PARK’S PAST

1821
1821

Henry Crandall is born.

1833
1833

Betsey Waters is born.

1858
1858

Betsey and Henry marry.

1872
1872

From 1872–1912 Henry Crandall purchases several plots of land at the city’s northern border with Queensbury and designs a park.

1898
1898
1898

A fountain erected in downtown Glens Falls is moved to the park. It will later be torn up for scrap metal in WWII.

1899
1899

Henry Crandall builds the five sided granite monument that will serve as his tombstone for his wife, his horses, and himself.

1900
1900

Crandall donates the park to the city trust , but continues to care for it as his own.

1901
1901

Crandall purchases Cole’s Woods from Norman Cole, editor and publisher of the Glens Falls Messenger newspaper. He creates a picnic area there and dredges several ponds so that a motor launch can be built. In 1912, he had a dam constructed on Halfway Brook and diverted some of the water into a pool about 150 feet long by 40 feet wide on the western end of Cole’s Woods to provide a swimming pool.

1913
1913

Henry Crandall dies; by a special act of the NYS legislature, the Crandall Trust is established to care for the park along with Crandall Library and City Park.

1914
1914

Betsey dies

1917
1917

Trust reaches out to the Olmsted Firm about designing the park.

1921
1921

The Women’s Christian Temperance Union drinking fountain is dedicated.

1927
1927
1927

World War Memorial “Victory and Peace” by Bruce Wilder Saville of NYC, built with funds raised by the GF Post 233 of the American Legion, is unveiled.

1945
Early 20th Century

In the Early 20th Century, a 50 foot wooden toboggan run stretched across what is now Fire Rd. An ice skating rink the size of a football field stretched from the field house all the way to Glen St.

1947
1947

City Common Council votes to take over the maintenance of Crandall Park at the trust’s request.

1962
1962

Montgomery Wards offers $100,000 for a portion of the park to build a new store.

1963
1963

The Glens Falls Lodge of Elks undertake a project to scrape and clean the duck pond and deepen it so that it will be more hospitable to fish and to firm up its islands and shores and stock it with fish.

1965
1965

NYS Assembly passes bill authorizing the city to purchase Crandall Park. NYS would pay 75%; city makes up the balance. Federal government ends up paying it.

1969
1969

A tree from Crandall Park is lighted at the National Christmas Tree in Washington by President Nixon, who mistakenly says it’s from Ohio.

1975
1975

New picnic pavilion built.

1976
1976

Summer concerts resume at Crandall Park after being cancelled at City Park.

1979
1979

Guess Who concert in the park attracts a crowd of 25,000.

1987
1987

Crandall Monument dedicated.

2007
2007

Old field house razed.

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