Elizabeth Jarvis Colt's death in 1905 gave the city these 106-acre grounds, once the Armsmear Estate she shared with Samuel Colt, and today Colt Park in the Sheldon/Charter Oak neighborhood of southeast Hartford is the parkland under your feet. The estate was gifted to the city upon her death in 1905, and today the park is home to playgrounds, sports fields, a pool and Dillon Stadium. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 8, 1976, designated as part of the Colt Industrial District and valued for its association with industrialist Samuel Colt.
Originally the grounds were developed in High Victorian Gothic style and served as Colt's exclusive "pleasure-grounds," complete with large reflecting pools, rustic furnishings, fountains, urns, statuary, artificial ponds for fish and foul, a deer park, orchards and fields. Pope Park and Colt Park were the last major additions to the City of Hartford Parks System in 1898 and 1905, respectively, intended to serve the traditionally working-class Hartford neighborhoods of Frog Hollow, Parkville, and Front... Notice the streets that bound this place — Wawarme, Wethersfield, Hendricxsen, Van Dyke, Stonington, Maseek and Sequassen—that once served Frog Hollow, Parkville and Front.