Lovers Leap State Park is a public recreation area on the

Housatonic River The Housatonic River ( ) is a river, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed April 1, 2011 in western Massachusetts and western Connecticut in the United S ...

in the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

of New Milford,

Litchfield County Litchfield County is in northwestern Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 185,186. The county was named after Lichfield, in England. Litchfield County has the lowest population density of any county in Connecticut and is the ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

. The

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

's straddle the Housatonic Gorge near the intersection of

Connecticut Route 67 Route 67 is a secondary state highway in the U.S. state of Connecticut, from the town of New Milford in the Greater Danbury area to the town of Woodbridge in the outskirts of New Haven. The route runs for . It generally follows a northwest-south ...

and Connecticut Route 202. The park offers hiking to scenic and historic locations and is managed by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

History

The park's eastern 52 acres were once the estate of Catherine Judson Hurd, who bequeathed the land to the state for use a public park in 1971. After

Connecticut Light and Power Eversource Energy is a publicly traded, Fortune 500 energy company headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut, and Boston, Massachusetts, with several regulated subsidiaries offering retail electricity, natural gas service and water service to ap ...

sold land on the west side of the gorge to the state, Lovers Leap State Park was dedicated in 2007.

Features

The park's historic features include the 1895 Berlin Iron Bridge, which is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, the ruins of the Bridgeport Wood Finishing Company factory, and the remains of the Hurd estate which include the vine-encrusted "yellow cat tea house."

References

External links

Lovers Leap State Park
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
Lovers Leap State Park Map
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection {{authority control State parks of Connecticut Protected areas of Litchfield County, Connecticut Protected areas established in 1971 New Milford, Connecticut 1971 establishments in Connecticut