Fields Point (also known as Field's Point) is a historic park in the Washington Park neighborhood of

Providence, Rhode Island Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...

jutting into

Narragansett Bay Narragansett Bay is a bay and estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound covering , of which is in Rhode Island. The bay forms New England's largest estuary, which functions as an expansive natural harbor and includes a small archipelago. S ...

right near the

Providence River The Providence River is a tidal river in the U.S. state of Rhode Island. It flows approximately 8 miles (13 km). There are no dams along the river's length, although the Fox Point Hurricane Barrier is located south of downtown to protect ...

and Route 95.

History

The point was named after William Field, a British colonist who settled in Providence, RI with an acreage and a house on what is now South Main Street. In the 19th century, Fields Point Farm, a park, developed as the major recreational area in the city until

Roger Williams Park Roger Williams Park is an elaborately landscaped city park in Providence, Rhode Island and a historic district (United States), historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The park is named after Roger Williams, the ...

was created in 1871. Visitors came to the Point to visit Colonel Atwell's Clam House, Edgewood Beach, The Washington Park Yacht Club and Kerwin's Beach. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the US Maritime Commission selected Field's Point as a location for a shipyard as part of the

Emergency Shipbuilding Program The Emergency Shipbuilding Program (late 1940 – September 1945) was a United States government effort to quickly build simple cargo ships to carry troops and materiel to allies and foreign theatres during World War II. Run by the U.S. Maritim ...

. Much of what had previously been there was sacrificed to wartime necessity. The yard was eventually taken over by the Walsh-Kaiser Company. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, one of the piers of the former shipyard was used to house a US Naval Reserve center. The Submarine USS Lionfish was berthed at the pier for use as a training vessel from 1960 until circa 1970. She now lies only a few miles away at

Battleship Cove Battleship Cove is a nonprofit maritime museum and war memorial in Fall River, Massachusetts, United States. Featuring the world's largest collection of World War II-era naval vessels, it is home to the highly-decorated battleship . It is locate ...

Fall River, Massachusetts Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, United States. Fall River's population was 94,000 at the 2020 United States census, making it the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, tenth-largest city in the state, and the second- ...

. The facility is now a (combined Army, Navy, Marine) Armed Forces Reserve Center. In the 1950s, Providence started using Fields Point as a

landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

, eventually connecting the Point with nearby Starve Goat Island. In the 1960s, entrepreneur, Melvin Berry started "bar, marina, swim club, amusement park, bowling alley, drive-in theatre, indoor ice skating rink and a nightly Hawaiian dance show" in Fields Point. Circa the mid to late 1960s, Fields Point was also utilized as an operations base for high speed testing between Westerly and

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

of the Gas turbine

Turbo Train The UAC TurboTrain was an early high-speed, gas turbine train manufactured by United Aircraft that operated in Canada between 1968 and 1982 and in the United States between 1968 and 1976. It was one of the first gas turbine-powered trains to en ...

, before acting as a train graveyard for the three trainsets after September 1976. In 1973,

Johnson & Wales University Johnson & Wales University (JWU) is a private university with its main campus in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded as a business school in 1914 by Gertrude I. Johnson and Mary T. Wales, JWU enrolled 7,357 students across its cam ...

established a facility in Fields Point, but by 2001, the university leased land to

Save The Bay Save The Bay is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving San Francisco Bay and related estuarine habitat areas. It was founded by Catherine Kerr, Sylvia McLaughlin, and Esther Gulick in 1961. The organization aims to protect the ...

for an educational center. In late 2012 a three-turbine wind farm was installed at Fields Point to provide energy for the waste water treatment plant.

References

Parks in Rhode Island Geography of Providence, Rhode Island Protected areas of Providence County, Rhode Island Tourist attractions in Providence, Rhode Island {{ProvidenceRI-stub

History

See also

References