Master Plan 2021
1.0 EXISTING CONDITIONS 1.1 A Brief History of Carson Park Carson Park became a city park in 1915 but was known in Eau Claire before that period as Shaw’s Island. The Chippewa Valley Museum states the following history: “Prior to becoming Carson Park in 1915, the peninsula had been used for recreation, lumber, and as a site for a hospital. People had enjoyed the area for recreational use since the 1850s, and by the end of the 1860s it was intended the land would be preserved as a park. However, an outbreak of smallpox caused a hospital to be built. In 1873, the hospital was burned, and the idea of using the land as a park slowly resurfaced. On April 28, 1889, the whole peninsula burned. By that time much of the peninsula was owned by the Daniel Shaw Lumber Company. The company purchased the remaining 30 acres it didn’t own from James S. Vail that August.”
Carson Park
The park was named in honor of Williams E. Carson, one of the wealthiest lumbermen in the Chippewa Valley. Carson’s heirs donated the land to the City of Eau Claire posthumously in their father’s name in 1914. Remnants of the history of logging and the lumber industry remain today, visible with the prominent stands of pine trees throughout the park. That history is also celebrated at the Chippewa Valley Museum and Paul Bunyan Logging Camp within Carson Park.
1.1 1930s aerial photo of Carson Park
8
Image courtesy of the Chippewa Valley Museum
