Dart Island State Park is a public recreation area comprising an undeveloped sandbar island in the Connecticut River that is only accessible by boat. The island is within the corporate boundaries of the city of Middletown, Connecticut, its nearest neighbors being the Middletown Generating Station and Pratt and Whitney plant on the river's west bank. The island is wooded with "typical river trees like willow, poplar and red maple." It is managed by Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, which lists boating, fishing, and bird watching as activities for visitors.
History The sandbar was once used by fishermen who built a shed and equipment for managing fishing lines to harvest the river's hickory shad runs. In 1918, Russell Dart donated the approximately island to the Connecticut State Park Commission. The commission designated it as Connecticut's fifteenth state park and named it for its benefactor. The size of the park was subsequently rounded up to two acres in official publications while being rounded down to one acre when referred to unofficially. In 1924, it was touted, unofficially, as being the smallest state park in the United States, with but a single acre. In 1934, the State Register and Manual, the first annual issue to list parks and their sizes, set Dart Island State Park at two acres, and it remained listed at that size for nearly 80 years. The 2012 edition of the Register and Manual listed the park at , the park's official size.
According to Middletown's Harbor Management Plan, Dart Island "is considered undevelopable by the ... State Parks Division, which has no plans for [its] active use or management."
Activities and amenities The park may be used for bird watching, boating, and fishing. It is only accessible by water and has no facilities for the public.
References In the park's early years, the figure of one-and-half acres was rounded down to one acre by non-state organizations such as the National Conference on State Parks (see ) and the National Geographic Society (see ); in official publications, it was rounded up to two acres (see, for example, page 123 of and page 227 of the ).
The park was identified as having two acres in 1930 () and as having 19 acres when DEP (predecessor to DEEP) listed the park on its website in 2010 (). Although the increased acreage has been otherwise unexplained, approximating the island's size using its dimensions of roughly 1000 yards long by 100 yards across at its widest point yields a figure roughly equaling 19 acres.
Assessment of Dart Island has been largely negative. Middleton city officials denigrated it as a state park "in name only" (see ); a blogger called it "not very interesting ... looking" (see ); and as of 2015 the operators of a charity regatta no longer use Dart Island as a finish line because it "isolated the event ... from the public" (see ).
In the mid 20th century, The Connecticut River Guide mentioned the island as having good camping spots, a feature not noted by the DEEP. See .
External links Other State Parks and Forests Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection