Quarry Park

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 Quarry Park, the basalt (traprock) ridge that gave Rocky Hill its name, was formed 200 million years ago when the CT countryside was populated with dinosaurs. Pre-historic artifacts uncovered from the Lone Pine Site in the Quarry show that Native Americans lived here as far back as 6,300 BCE.

The Quarry began operating as the Rocky Hill Stone Company in 1901 shortly after the CT Valley Railroad was built in 1871. The stripping of the top ledge was initially done by hand, with dump carts moving traprock along tracks to be crushed and loaded onto trains. Later work was done using steam, then air, to drill holes to set 3/4-inch sticks of dynamite. Steam shovels, dump trucks and bulldozers loaded traprock on to trucks that furnished the river side of the dikes around Hartford and trucked rock across CT, New York and Massachusetts. The Quarry operation stopped in 1957, but from 1925-1944 over a million and a half tons of traprock was sold from this Quarry. It was said that there was enough traprock in this hill to plaster over all the wagon roads in the State. In the earlier years most of the workers lived around the quarry, cooking on outside fireplaces and living in shanties. Immigrants from Corvo, Italy made up the earliest workforce.

A concrete batching plant, an asphalt plant, a blacksmith shop, the CT Gun Guild, the Rocky Hill Vault Co. and the Town Garage also operated on these premises. 

During WWII an airplane spotter station was constructed on Liberty Hill at the south end of the Quarry and a U.S. Army encampment in 1942 was also stationed there. The soldiers maintained searchlights and listening devices to protect from possible air raids on Pratt & Whitney Aircraft or Colt’s Patent Firearm plants in the Hartford area. 

In 1948, the Wethersfield Ski Club used the northernmost hill in the Quarry to ski. The remains of the 1936 Buick which powered the rope tow rests as a reminder on top of the hill. A 1986 development proposal to build 30 single housing units and 441 multi housing units on this land was defeated by the Rocky Hill Neighborhood Association. In 1991, their plan to Save the Rocky Hill led to the purchase of this land for a State park by the Town and State for 1.3 million dollars under the Recreation and Natural Heritage Act. 

Quarry Park, officially opened in 1991, is historic land with majestic views of the CT river valley and the Great Meadows. Ruins of the Quarry operation past are scattered throughout this land which is being reclaimed by nature. A coniferous and deciduous forest, along with ponds and streams support frogs, turtles, rabbits, deer, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, vultures, herons, eagles and humans.