Bushnell Park in Hartford, Connecticut is the second oldest publicly funded park in the United States, after Boston Common, which was established in 1634, and converted to a park in the 1830’s. Bushnell Park was conceived by the Reverend Horace Bushnell in the mid-1850s at a time when the need for open public spaces was just starting to be recognized. Today the park comprises 50 acres of green space, and is visited by over one million people each year.