Saturday Kennedy Park in Fall River MA

Today I will share a few shots of a visit I did a little while back to Kennedy Park in Fall River MA, I thought about these photos as I have an appoiuntment in Fall River next week and am thinking about heading there early and catching the sunrise, possibly visiting this park during and before sunrise and seeing what I can get.

The park has an interesting history

Before it was a park, the land was a farm owned by John Durfee. Until 1862, this entire area was actually part of Tiverton, Rhode Island. A border realignment moved the land into Massachusetts.

In 1832, the farm gained national attention when a pregnant woman named Sarah M. Cornell was found dead on the property. A prominent Methodist minister was tried for her murder and acquitted, sparking local outrage.

During the post-Civil War Industrial Revolution, Fall River rapidly became America's largest textile manufacturing center. Overcrowded, unhealthy working conditions in the mills prompted city leaders to buy the land in 1868 to give working-class families a desperately needed outdoor escape.

In 1870, the city hired Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and Calvert Vaux—the fathers of American landscape architecture

The narrow, steep cow pasture was cut across by two major roads and railroad tracks.
Olmsted and Vaux cleverly divided the challenging landscape into three tiers to isolate visitors from the surrounding industrial city, they are:
The Upper Section: A flat tableland designed for sports, carriage drives, and community gatherings.