100 Years of Conflict, Passion and Preservation: Lecture at NHM on the Founding of Sleeping Giant State Park

This year, Sleeping Giant State Park turns 100. Yet the path to creating one of Connecticut’s most beloved public hiking destinations was neither quick nor easy. Trina Mace Learned will illustrate the fascinating story during a presentation, “The Founding of Sleeping Giant State Park,” at the New Haven Museum on Wednesday, October 30, 2024, at 6 p.m., preceded by a reception at 5:30 p.m. Register for this free event here: www.simpletix.com/e/the-founding-of-sleeping-giant-state-park-tickets-185184

Learned’s dynamic story of the park’s creation reflects early 20th-century conflicting priorities and hard-reached resolutions: destructive commercial interests, the public’s passion for preservation, and thorny legal battles. The cast includes neighboring businessmen, Yale scholars, captains of industry, and the Park Association’s founding members whose love for “the Giant” ultimately prevailed. Learned will follow 25 years of twists and turns that culminated in the beautiful park we love today.

Comprised of two miles of traprock mountaintop resembling the profile of a man lying in repose, the Sleeping Giant range was seen by Indigenous peoples (mostly Quinnipiac) as the embodiment of Hobbomock, a mischievous giant prone to temper tantrums (Hobbomock purportedly stomped his foot in Middletown, redirecting the path of the Connecticut River to Old Saybrook). Legend has it that Kietan, a benevolent spirit, enticed Hobbomock to fill his pockets with minerals and oysters and lie down to slumber in the Mount Carmel region of Hamden, where he remains to this day.

Prior to becoming a state park, the Sleeping Giant range was mostly undeveloped forest owned by many different parties. A few cabins were built by owners along the mountain’s various ridges; trails were developed largely for them to access their property.

In 1911, landowner Judge Willis Cook leased the Giant’s “head” to Connecticut Trap Rock Quarries for 20years, renewable for another 20 years. The quarrying was continuous, and, Learned notes, rather destructive, through the remainder of Cook’s life. Meanwhile, James Toumey, the dean of the recently established Yale School of Forestry, sought public stewardship of the forestland on Sleeping Giant. He worked with donors to obtain privately held land parcels on the mountain (much of the land from the chest to the feet) and formed an organization to present those properties to the state, creating the state park in 1924. When Cook died in 1930, his wife inherited the property, then arranged for the Park Association to purchase it. The quarry lease was bought out by the Park Association in 1933.

As it did a century ago, society continues to experience tension and conflict between social desires, conservation, and commercial development interests, making the story of Sleeping Giant still relevant today. Learned asks, “Is what’s good for society – here the preservation of a large swath of public land – more important than financial gain by a few enterprising landowners?”