Connecticut’s State Parks

Connecticut has 110 state parks and as far as I can tell this is the only complete list to be found anywhere.

Links

• Official DEEP Page
• CTMQ State Parks, Reserves, Preserves, and Forests
• Sky’s the Limit Hiking Challenge
• ExploreCT State Parks YouTube Playlist

There are a few former or uncertain status state parks:

Former State Parks

• Quinebaug Pines – This former state park located in Putnam started with the purchase of 37 acres for $6,100 in 1923.  It was purchased from a Ransom H. Bradley who had owned it since 1913.  The stand of pines was one of the few remaining in the state at that time with some pines at least three feet in diameter. It was damaged by flooding in 1936 and the majority of the pines were leveled in the 1938 Hurricane.  In October 1948 the state traded the property to American Optical for 24 acres along Lake Mashapaug (modern day Bigelow Hollow)
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• Fort Shantok – This 160 acre state park was originally acquired in 1926 and 1930 thanks to the efforts of Mr. Arthur Peale of Norwich (then a new member of the State Park Commission) who was an enthusiast of local Native American history. Fort Shantok was a Native American fort, cemetery, and the sacred grounds of Uncas.  The now discontinued blue blaze Mohegan Trail ran through the property from 1942 likely through the early 60s.  The park was returned to the Mohegan Tribe upon their federal recognition in 1994.
• Buttonball Brook – This small state park was originally acquired in 1919 as a road wayside park similar to Wharton Brook.  A squatter occupied the park through 1925 who built a small house and dam on the property and patroled it for wildfires. It received work from the Natchaug CCC crew in the early 1930s to build a dam for a proposed 7 acre pond though work was stopped in 1935 and the project was never completed.  State park reports from the time show it had in excess of 20k visitors each year through the 1940s. The park was folded into a parcel of Natchaug State Forest at an unknown date.
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• Saptree Run and Wolf Den State Parks – Consolidated into modern day Mashamoquet Brook State Park
• Pequonnock River Valley State Park – I’ve seen references to this area as a state park but have roughly confirmed with locals that is has never been state park as far as they know.
• Beardsley State Park – Old references, very uncertain and unconfirmed.