Colt State Park - Rhode Island
Posted by: 
RIclimber
N 41° 41.267 W 071° 16.750
19T E 310319 N 4617621
Colt State Park in Bristol is often referred to as the 'gem' of the State Parks System. The entire western border of the park is an open panorama onto Narragansett Bay.
TOTAL ACREAGE: 464.165
Waymark Code: WM7M93
Location: Rhode Island, United States
Date Posted: 11/08/2009
Views: 13
Two bronze lions guard the stone barn built in the early 1900's to house the prize Jersey herd of Colonel Samuel P. Colt. Within the huge barn is an elegant, octagonal room, designed to display the trophies which the cows were to win. In 1916 the finishing touches were added to the barn. An artist, brought from Paris to paint in Colt's Bristol home, came to the farm and painted muralsin Colt's barn office. That same year, Colonel Colt purchased the first Jerseys to occupy his magnificent barn. From these he hoped to breed the world's finest Jersey herd.
Samuel Colt, chairman of the board of the United States Rubber Company, created an extraordinary farm. He bought and combined three farms and designed a system of roads that linked them together as one...the Colt farm. The stone bridge which still spans the Mill Gut was part of this road system. His large summer house, the Casino, was constructed on the shore of Narragansett Bay. Two smaller guest houses were also built near the water. Closer to the stone barn was a farmhouse where some of his employees lived. Bronze statues of horses, deer and Greek gods and goddesses looked out over the meadows where Colonel Colt's prize Jersey herd grazed.
Colonel Colt felt that the public should be able to share in his enjoyment of the farm. He had an open invitation engraved in marble at the main entrance: "Colt Farm, Private Property, Public Welcome". On pleasant days families walked from the town of Bristol to picnic in the fields, dig clams and quohaugs in the Mill Gut salt marsh or fish for flounder, tautog and striped bass from the shore. Workers in white guided people through the magnificent stone barn, pointing out prize cows and offering glasses of fresh milk to the visitors. The mangers (feeding troughs) were scrubbed after each feeding, and the white-tile ceiling was kept mirror clean so that the entire herd of cows in their stanchions could be seen reflected in the ceiling. A visitor to the farm once wrote, "If I were the biggest liar in the world, I could not exaggerate the magnitude and the wonders of the Colt Farm".
To members of Rhode Island society, parties at the Casino were an important part of the summer season. Friends of the Colts often came by train from Providence to Bristol where Colt's car or sometimes his carriage would meet them and bring them to the Casino.
Colonel Samuel Colt died of a stroke in 1921. The Industrial Trust Company, the bank he had founded, continued the operation of the farm. In 1965 the State of Rhode Island bought Colt Farm to preserve it as a State Park. Within this park, the stone barn stands as reminder of the farm and the man who created it. His words at the entrance still welcome the public to his farm.
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