Newport Comprehensive Land Use Plan - Existing Conditions | Page 127

9 Open Space & Recreation
funded or implemented. Fort Adams was deeded to the State of Road Island in 1965. In 1971 the park was listed on
the National Register of Historic Places.

Miantonomi Memorial Park
Thirty-acre Miantonomi Memorial Park, the largest city-owned
According to the Newport
park, was part of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.’s 1913
Open Space Partnership
recommendations. The park’s rich history begins with early
prepared by Sasaki and
colonial settlers, who used the hill for a lookout, for public
Associates, Miantonomi Park
executions, and for beacons. In 1881 the site was purchased by
was one of the highlights of
Anson Phelps Stokes and remained in the family until 1921
Olmsted’s 1913 plan. Only a
when Mrs. Stokes sold it to the city so that the historic area
portion of this significant open
could become a memorial to Newport men who died in “The
space, however, is currently
Great War.” In deeding the property to the city, she stipulated
protected permanently by
that the premises should be for the free use of the public
easements/ restrictions.
forever. This commission developed the site and dedicated it
as a war memorial on Armistice Day in 1923. In 1925, the
Commission initiated a fund drive to raise $75,000 to build the tower, and, in 1929, the World War I Memo