Sunrise State Park

The area has been a resort since 1916 when it was first developed by Henry Engle and partner Ted Hilton who started by running rowboats on the Salmon River.  They were slowly able to build a resort over the years called Ted Hilton’s Hideaway by adding a cabin or two each year.  By the 1940s the property could hold 600 people.  The area was popular for resorts including another current park George Dudley Seymour State Park.

The resort expanded over the years to include mini golf, courts and sports fields, waterskiing, and in the 1950s had the largest pool in the state of Connecticut.  In 1965, it was purchased by Frank Davis and his wife Dot Lindvall, who had worked there since 1937.  They ran it as the Frank Davis Resort until 1986 when it was sold to the Johnson family.

The Johnson family called it Sunrise Resort and held annual jazz festivals, summer and day camps, and hosted motorcycle rallies.

The state was originally interested in the property as an RV campground and purchased it in 2008 for somewhere between $2-3.2 million.  It was established as a state park in 2009, however, due to the financial crisis the former resort floundered for several years.  The 82 buildings on the property, cabins, kitchens and dance halls, slowly deteriorated until the state knocked them down in 2013.