{"id":60,"date":"2016-08-03T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/?page_id=60"},"modified":"2016-08-03T20:54:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-04T00:54:29","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/about-the-park\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"

George and Eleanor Butler<\/strong> donated the majority of the land for Glen Providence Park in 1935 as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum<\/strong>. \u00a0The park was carefully planned under the leadership of Samuel L. Smedley<\/strong>, and its were trails laid to have minimum impact on the natural environment, while allowing visitors to experience and enjoy the plants and wildlife. Most\u00a0of the early work on the park, including the man-made pond<\/a><\/strong>, was done in the late 1930’s by the WPA, or Works Progress Administration\u00a0<\/strong>– its goal was to create jobs for the large number of unemployed.<\/p>\n

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1810 map of Delaware County – the land that is now the park is under the “PR” in Providence<\/p><\/div>\n

Due to the elegance of its plan and its original structures<\/a><\/strong>, in 2002 Glen Providence Park was determined by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission<\/em> to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places!<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This park has hosted an amazing array of events and activities\u00a0in its 80 years<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0from decades of summer concerts starting in 1937<\/a>,<\/strong>\u00a0July 4 Fireworks & Festivities<\/a><\/strong> from 1952 to 1986, and Fishing Rodeos<\/a><\/strong> for kids, to the park’s longest running event: the still-running Great Media Egg Hunt started in 1954<\/a>!<\/strong>\u00a0 Glen Providence Park\u00a0<\/span><\/span>has inspired numerous volunteers<\/a>,<\/strong> including Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts<\/a><\/strong>, to help maintain its natural beauty.<\/p>\n

Records from before the park was established show that the land was called Scroggie Valley<\/a><\/strong>– including a 1700’s\u00a0Ghost Story<\/a><\/strong>, an 1800’s\u00a0Witch Story<\/a><\/strong>, and an 1848\u00a0Shingle Mill<\/a><\/strong> along the creek. There are even early 1900’s\u00a0microscope slides of specimens collected from “Scroggie Run”<\/a><\/strong> at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and there is an ornate 1897 inscription<\/a><\/strong> on a hundreds-year old American Beech tree!<\/p>\n

Historical\u00a0maps dating back to 1681<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0illustrate the development of the land since European settlers arrived, and we researched the Okehocking<\/a><\/strong>, the Native Americans who lived in the area before the settlers. One of our most intriguing discoveries was that park founder Eleanor Reed Butler also brought the sport of golf to Delaware County, in 1896!\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We are working to revive the park’s history- on our first volunteer day, we restored the 1937 WPA concert stage<\/a>,<\/strong> and in September 2012 we revived the decades-old tradition of summer concerts in the park!<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0 You can see the\u00a01941 Nature Guide to Glen Providence Park<\/a><\/strong> that we uncovered in the Media Historic Archives. We hope that the lovely, but now-dry, Eleanor Reed Butler waterfall<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0by the pond can be restored.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

You can browse through the Categories <\/strong>and Tags <\/strong>on the right for more history, and you can search our more than 200 articles. \u00a0We have more information, including photographs and stories, in our Park History<\/a> album<\/strong> on facebook. There is also information in\u00a0the historical annotations on our trail map<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>and our new History Timeline <\/a><\/strong>lists our articles chronologically!<\/p>\n

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Glen Providence Plaza 1930’s or 1940’s postcard<\/p><\/div>\n

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These articles reflect hundreds of volunteer hours of primary source research, including private archives that have been shared with us to use, and paid access to historical records. We publish our writings free of charge to share widely the rich history of the park. You may use our articles for non-commercial purposes according to the terms of the Creative Commons license linked below. Please cite our website by each article used.<\/h6>\n
Suggested Citation: Stephanie Gaboriault. [article year]. “[article name]” Friends of Glen Providence Park Available at: https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org<\/h6>\n
Example: Stephanie Gaboriault. 2014. “Another Butler legacy: Golf in Delaware County!” Friends of Glen Providence Park Available at: https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

George and Eleanor Butler donated the majority of the land for Glen Providence Park in 1935 as a Bird Sanctuary and Arboretum. \u00a0The park was carefully planned under the leadership of Samuel L. Smedley, and its were trails laid to have minimum impact on the natural environment, while allowing visitors to experience and enjoy the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4875,"parent":5,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-60","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6566,"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions\/6566"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenprovidencepark.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}